50
FEATURES
Geberit’s revolutionary
high-rise drainage
system
From 20 to 22 November last year, industry professionals,
the media, and executives were invited to the launch of
Geberit’s groundbreaking new SuperTube system.
It does this by directing the water into a swirl action
around the outside of the pipe as it flows, creating a
central column of air inside the drainage pipe, which
serves the same function as the old ventilation pipe.
In South Africa, the system
has already found a home in
the Acsiopolis development
in Sandton, Johannesburg.
By Warren Robertson
The Geberit SuperTube is a revolutionary new
system, designed to optimise the drainage in
high-rise buildings.
Effective drainage is about speed and maximising the
volume of water that can be discharged from the building
at any given time — this is especially important in
high-rise buildings where numerous sources of drainage
entering the same system means that large volumes
of soiled water need to be drained efficiently. Failure to
do so will result in poor drainage performance and can
result in over/under pressures on the system.
Traditional systems rely on a separate ventilation pipe
to be laid alongside the drainage pipe to introduce
air (parallel vented system) and to release pressure
build-up that can slow down the rate at which water
flows out of the building. With water falling directly
downward, the air in the drainage system can cause
dangerous over pressures, slowing down the rate at
which the water flows.
The new Geberit SuperTube system addresses these
flow errors while eradicating the need for a separate
ventilation pipe entirely, thereby saving a vast amount
of space, time, and material costs in the construction of
high-rise buildings.
February 2019 Volume 24 I Number 12
Geberit explains that the SuperTube system allows
for pipelines with consistently smaller dimensions of
d110mm, which in turn means that smaller pipe ducts
can be used. An additional benefit is that horizontal
pipelines can be laid to a length of up to six metres
without a slope to save even more space.
In the SuperTube system, the outflowing water is set
in rotation in the Geberit HDPE Sovent fitting, which is
designed to guide the water into the stack and force
it into the twisting spiral that is its hallmark. With the
water twisting against the sides of the pipe, the resulting
annular flow creates a stable, continuous column of air
on the inside, allowing rapid discharge of water.
As the water rushes downward, it is inevitable that it would
meet with a change in direction or a position where it needs
to flow parallel with the ground. Due to various forces,
maintaining the column of air inside the annular flow is
impossible and so the Geberit HDPE BottomTurn bend
allows the wall of water to break using a flow divider and the
annular flow to become a layered flow without disrupting
the column of air. This change significantly reduces impulse
losses or gains compared with conventional solutions.
Changing direction back to the vertical also needs a
unique solution to transform the layered flow into an
annular one once again. This is done through the unique
Geberit HDPE BackFlip bend, which causes the layered
flow of water to swirl, allowing it to rotate through the
vertical pipeline and keep the column of air intact.
According to Geberit, with the Geberit SuperTube, the
discharge capacity is 12ℓ/s.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za