ISEC 10


PRIORITIZATION OF PIPELINE REPLACEMENT BASED ON FAILURE RATE

AMARJIT SINGH, XI SONG


Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to prioritize water pipelines for replacement through the analysis of pipeline failure rates and reliability. By using actual pipe condition record data from Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS), the constant failure rate is recognized through Bathtub profile and used to calculate reliability. This paper provides the utility manager a quantitative method to evaluate and arrange pipeline renewal. It assists in determining maintenance schedules depending on the age and type of the pipe by plotting the corresponding failure rate against time. Reliability helps determine whether a certain group of pipes are within the acceptable practice threshold to signal replacement. In this paper, the analysis of four major types of pipe systems from BWS are conducted. With the data from fiscal year (FY) 2008, the failure rates are calculated, and the reliability of all pipelines are seen to be above 80%.

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