Preface to the book “Anchorages for elastic-joint pipelines”, by Ibrahim Lasmar

Cities are hostage to their water system. If any of the urban infrastructure systems is lacking, chaos sets in. If electricity is lacking, the first unbearable effect that will be noticed is the lack of water: There will be no solution. If water is lacking, even with electricity, it will be unbearable to live in urban areas.

There must be in Brazil (2012) more than 10,000 water supply systems. This number does not stop increasing.

In each of them, water is sought farther and farther away, resulting in longer pipelines, with higher pressures.

Cities also grow in size and water distribution networks increase in every direction.

Sewage needs to be pumped to an adequate final destination; in short, pressure pipelines are increasingly important as the population increases and becomes urbanized.

The practicality and speed in implementation, maintenance and repair, interchangeability, the reduction of stock items, in short, a series of items seems to have favored the option for pipes with “elastic joints”, because all these aspects result in reliability (continuity of supply with minimization of interruptions) and savings.

The need to reduce costs, the new materials, the improvement of old materials, lead to increasingly smaller diameters, often not adopted because of technical insecurity on the part of the designer, the installer and the operator, who, through the most diverse arguments, end up oversizing the systems, working with lower pressures, without presenting convincing cost analyses.

But these pipelines must be implemented in an economical and reliable way.

Anchoring failures (or deficiencies) in pipelines are frequently confused with other causes, because many of the sites take a long time to collapse since, by luck, efforts and situations take a long time to overlap and often will only occur more frequently after some years, deceiving simpler minds.

It is to the personnel who will work with these units of water supply systems (and eventually other uses of elastic-joint pipelines) that this book is intended, filling a gap in the specialized technical literature because what Eng. Ibrahim addresses here only appears in other books in a summarized and superficial way, with an important gap for the practice of engineering in the sector, especially when pipelines with elastic joints are used, since these are the ones that require greater care in “anchorages”.

This work, although specialized, through a fairly simple technical approach, organizes the subject and presents explanations, methods and standards necessary for the projects (calculations, arrangements, drawing, details, etc.), construction and conservation of units composed of pipes. It is a didactic synthesis and a technical memory of years of work and experience, which are recorded here for current use and so that this learning and this collection are not lost for future generations.

The author, Engineer Ibrahim Lasmar, is a unique figure, both as a technician and as a person.

I still remember when I met him, back in the 1980s, in a presentation at the former DNOS about the implementation of the so-called “Projeto Rio” on the western shore of Guanabara Bay, and he spoke about drainage in the basins upstream of that landfill on that shore.

I soon noticed that I was before an extraordinary person, an “unforgettable type”.

As a technician, he brings together theory, experience (he graduated in 1951 from the current EE-UFRJ and since then has practiced engineering in fact) and common sense, resulting in wisdom that overflows to colleagues. Nor is there any subject in which Ibrahim is not interested and about which he does not have creative and useful ideas to give. It is a “gift” he has: that of “engineering” all the time.

As a person, he brings together concepts that we all wish to have: he is admired by those who come near him, everyone likes him and wants to work with him, everyone refers to him with a certain “something” of admiration. Evidently, such regard comes from his qualities: discreet, loyal, affable, reliable, friendly, affectionate, besides his folkloric elegance.

But it is this same Ibrahim in whom I notice a technical vanity that motivates him above remuneration and money, and that makes him seek a better solution for each subject and that makes him humbly show and teach what he knows. It is the good vanity, the one that builds and that must be encouraged by all of us, as Ibrahim has always done. The vanity that the engineer feels when seeing a finished and functioning work and knowing that it is there largely because of his labor and his art. Some call those who behave this way a “vibrator”. Well, all of us who lived with and learned from Ibrahim were somewhat infected by this way of being and for us it is more important to do what is right, to show what we know, because that is what feeds us, that is what makes us vibrate.

I think that was what made him write this book: knowing that he knew more about this subject than most colleagues, he did not want to miss the opportunity to transmit this body of knowledge and dedicated himself to putting on paper the summary of his studies, his experiences, his lucubrations.

Whoever needs to go deeper into this theme will find answers or paths in this book, always in the simple and clear approach to which we referred.

It is a book from professional to professional. From father to children.

Thank you, Ibrahim, on behalf of all of us who will use this book with great benefit.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written in 2003 R2026 Jan, 5,170 characters.