Thomas Industries, Inc.

Thomas Industries of Tennessee, Inc.

William P Ware

Donald N Hesprich

Robert D Wheeler

An apparatus for facilitating field installation of electrical conduit and fiber optic lines in a conduit and a method of providing pull line in such apparatus. A roll of wound conduit tubing having a length of over 700 feet is provided with a pull line extending through the entire length of the wound tubing. The pull line has a tensile strength of about 45 pounds such that it will have sufficient strength to accomplish field pulling operations.

Roll of wound conduit tubing with prethreaded pull line

Cable pull lines are pneumatically rodded through underground cable housing conduit comprising joined multipassage sections by attaching the free end of the pull lines to individual foam carriers inserted into each passage at one end of the conduit and forcing air through a manifold into said passages behind the foam carriers to simultaneously drive the carriers to the open exit end of the conduit. The pull lines have been previously uniformly wound on a reel and a brake is used to tension the reel as the pull lines unwind therefrom to keep the foam carriers in phase as they advance through the conduit and thereby to prevent air bypassing the leading foam carriers through gaps at the conduit section joints with resultant loss of driving pressure.

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Charlotte, NC, United States of America

William P Ware