More than 1,000 members of the global plumbing community witnessed the launch of Geberit Supertube technology at the recent World Plumbing Conference 2019 held in Melbourne, Australia.
This revolutionary technology is designed to optimize sanitary drainage in high-rise buildings. Maximizing usable space and reduction of material usage is an increasingly important consideration in the design and construction of high-rise residential and commercial buildings. Conventional building drainage systems occupy large pockets of valuable space and require substantial amounts of material due to additional ventilation pipes.
Geberit Supertube is the next evolution in building drainage, providing significant space gains in high-rise offices, hotels and multi-storey residential buildings owing to its innovative, high-capacity and minimalistic design. Three sophisticated fittings form the optimal combination of this technology, providing a unique movement of outflowing sanitary discharge that makes the complete system so effective.
Sanitary discharges within a vertical stack of a multi-storey building quickly form into an “annular” flow, of which a central air column is a key component. The annular flow is formed in the Geberit HDPE Sovent junction, where it offsets the stack discharge upon entry and sets it in rotation.
With the water rotating against the side of the pipe, the resulting annual flow creates a stable, continuous column of air on the inside, facilitating a maximum discharge capacity of 12 litres per second, rivalling that of conventional drainage but requiring significantly less space and materials or unnecessary increases in pipe diameters.
Geberit HDPE Bottomturn Bend at the stack offset or base transitions the discharge from vertical annular flow to horizontal layered flow whilst maintaining the continuous column of air. A hydraulic “pulse” is avoided by the non-formation of a water curtain blocking the entrained air.
Geberit HDPE Backflip Bend, with its unique design, changes the layered flow back into a vertical annular flow, keeping the air column intact. The protection of the annular flow in the 110 mm diameter pipe removes the need for a separate parallel ventilation pipe, which reduces spatial requirements in both the vertical duct and the horizontal cavity.
Further to this, horizontal pipelines up to 6 m in length can be installed with no gradient, allowing greater ceiling heights. Prohibited or “no-connection” zones are greatly reduced, allowing simpler design and increased connection points for plumbing fixtures.
The benefits of Supertube are also evident during the planning and installation phases of a project. The smaller number of system components with single diameter pipes simplifies the planning and design process, which makes for easier and faster installation.
