NDT-based service life prediction of deteriorating water mains

The accelerating deterioration of water mains and the escalating cost of maintaining existing infrastructure has led to the development of the Hydroscope tool for non-destructive evaluation of cast and ductile iron pipes.;A computer program, PIPEXSC.EXE, was developed to simulate the distribution of the section modulus of corroded pipe cross-sections using the recorded average and the minimum wall thicknesses measured at specific location along the line by the Hydroscope tool. The sensitivity of the probability distribution of the section modulus to the uncertainty in the non-destructive tool and to the mathematical modelling of the cross-section was investigated.;A method of forecasting the remaining service life of a pipeline, which considers flexural failures and perforations of a pipe wall due to corrosion, was incorporated into a computer program called PIPEREL.EXE. The historical failure records and the results of simulations using PIPEXSC.EXE are used as input for the analysis of a pipeline. The sensitivity of the estimated remaining service life of cast and ductile iron pipelines to corrosion rates, wall thickness measurement errors, and other failure mode specific parameters was investigated using the program.