The end result often keeps residents' and business owners' properties from being torn apart for work, municipal and university officials said.

As the technology grows in popularity, Louisiana Tech University has been on the leading edge of research with its Trenchless Technology Center that is in line to receive its own facility. The University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors could approve construction of the privately funded $500,000 facility today.

"Trenchless technology research is having a tremendous impact on civil infrastructures around the world," said Stan Napper, dean of Tech's College of Engineering and Sciences. "Under-ground systems are deteriorating everywhere ... and trenchless technology is helping address it easier."

Trenchless Technology Center Director Ray Sterling is dedicating his career to finding newer and better ways to install and repair underground utilities without digging vast trenches, and he is responsible for leading the planning and fund-raising efforts.

"The center is 16 years old, and it's the most established in North America," Sterling said. "But we've suffered from a lack of adequate testing facilities. This facility will keep us on the cutting edge."

Trenchless technology techniques range from steering new piping underground to using small robotic devices in existing pipes to driving drills into pipes to make them implode, he said.

"It's the civil engineering version of microsurgery," Sterling said, pointing out many engineering students take trenchless technology courses. "We don't need to open everything up."

The laying of new pipe and pipe-bursting techniques are now being widely utilized locally and municipal officials credit Tech with sharing and teaching the information in local seminars statewide.

"In the last five years, we've done 20,000 feet of it," said Richard Aillet, Ruston water utilities director. "We don't tear up nearly as many roads and it's a much more user-friendly process. Tech's been extremely valuable."

Tech has provided testing results and shared potential, indirect effects of techniques on gas lines and ground expansion with the city, Aillet said.

The new facility can begin construction in the fall with a spring opening on Tech Farm, south of the main campus, Sterling said. The research space will include soil-structure interaction testing facilities, as well as general testing space, he said.

Private companies and individuals donated the funds, including $250,000 from alumnus Mike Garver of BRH Garver Construction in Houston. As more funds become available, Sterling hopes to add on more for more collaboration space to attract new companies to north Louisiana, he said.

Originally published June 24, 2005

By Jordan Blum
jblum@thenewsstar.com