This paper addresses decision-making issues faced by most water utilities regarding theirwater mains. An overview is provided to explain the difference between failuremanagement of small-diameter mains in distribution systems and failure prevention inlarge-diameter transmission pipelines. The paper further describes past and on-goingresearch at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) on these issues. A descriptionis provided for the application of fuzzy logic to assess failure risk of large diametertransmission pipelines. Case studies are described to illustrate the application of a multivariatetime-exponential model to historical failure rates in small-diameter distributionmains. The impact of time-dependent factors on water main breaks is demonstrated, withspecial emphasis on the effect of various cathodic protection measures on the life-cyclecosts of water mains. Includes 22 references, figures.
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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/17/2004 Number of Pages: 16File Size: 1 file , 310 KB