Customer Stories

overview The Alzkanal carries water for hydropower, fire protection and industrial uses in southern Bavaria. The canal was due for periodic inspection, maintenance and repairs. But the channel was filled with deep, fast-flowing water and needed to stay that way as much as possible. Canal operators faced a paradox: How do you develop repair and maintenance plans for something you can't see or access? Location BAVARIA TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS PLANNING FOR THE CHALLENGE The maintenance was scheduled for a 16.8-km section of the canal. The canal would be shut down during the work of cleaning and repair of cracks or damaged areas. In addition to the expense of materials and labor, local industries would purchase power from other—more costly—sources, and municipalities needed to find alternative sources for fire protection water. The shutdown was planned to last eight weeks, an inflexible schedule due to the shutdown's high cost and inconvenience. Canal operators selected SAK Ingenieurgesellschaft GmbH to provide surveying for the canal refurbishment. SAK would document existing conditions and provide data for structural analyses and construction planning. Project requirements included precise measurements of the channel surface at 2cm point density as well as 3D data extending out 100m along both sides of the canal. SAK planned to use technologies including aerial imaging, photogrammetry, GNSS, total stations and laser scanning. "Preplanning for construction was very limited because the channel is always full of water," said SAK's Christian Fendt. "The owner and contractors needed detailed information to perform the repairs. We had a very tight time frame to survey the channel to produce the required data."

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