Renewed DN600 water transmission pipeline resumes water supply to future generations

Hungarian local and state government water utilities operated by DRV – Hungary’s largest – provides service to western counties that surround Lake Balaton; Baranya, Fejér, Somogy, Tolna, Veszprém and Zala. 830,000 inhabitants of almost 400 settlements in these areas rely on its provision of drinking water, whilst industrial and agricultural production plants need water for their operations. To do this, industrial water supply systems and waterworks at the local, micro-regional and regional levels are operated.

A crucial pipeline for water supply among these lies in Lake Balaton’s west region. The 12.5 km DN600 drinking water transmission pipeline runs from Tapolca to Balatonederics. Unfortunately, a series of failures has indicated the approaching end of its service life, with normal operations being disrupted or prevented.

The first 2.5 km of the pipeline underwent reconstruction through an open, international and public procurement tender process. For this project, a cast iron pipeline was selected by the investor, which AVK complemented with our double eccentric butterfly valves and ductile iron fittings.

With consideration to end of service life issues, ductile iron which has an expected lifetime of 100 to 150 years was chosen as a durable solution. Meanwhile, double eccentric butterfly valves were preferred against standard gate valves to avoid water hammer through slow opening and closing since this was a regional, large diameter water transmission pipeline. In addition to this, AVK provided further solutions in dismantling joints and delivering our Supa Maxi™ couplings DN600 – the first of its kind in Hungary.

Together our solutions have exceeded the project with tremendous success. Regular water supply has been revived within this crucial pipeline and surrounding communities can feel secure in their access to water once again for generations to come.