Air-Knife Clearing

WPI’s Geoscience Department also provides air knifing services for a variety of situations, including:
- Pre-drilling location clearance
- Underground utility location verification
- Cathodic protection installation
- Underground piping and conduit repairs
- Manway and valve box cleaning/maintenance
- Rehabilitation/de-silting of small diameter injection wells
The Air Knife technology utilizes high-velocity air to penetrate, expand, and break up soil. The soil and rock is then removed from the hole using a powerful vacuum. Main advantages of using high-velocity air over other means of excavation are:
- Safety - Using air to break up the soil and remove it from the hole is far less likely to cause damage to underground utilities than mechanical excavation methods
- Speed – The air knife equipment is more efficient for small excavation, can excavate numerous without re-locating the equipment, and is easy to move when relocation is required.