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The Role of Very Detailed Soil Environment (VDSE) Maps in Assessing the Performance of Buried Water Pipes

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Engineering Asset Management and Infrastructure Sustainability

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Abstract

In almost every city in every country, water reticulation assets are buried in the ground. These fail at different rates for reasons that include asset material, age, technique of manufacture and the soil environment they are buried in. Very detailed system wide soil environment information has long been the missing component of asset failure models. In this paper I relate 20 unique soil environments to 7½ years of failure data recorded for 1,688 km of cast iron and 309 km of asbestos cement water reticulation assets. Results show that to understand which aging assets will perform badly, it is not necessary to understand either the corrosive or mechanical soil characteristics that might lead to variations in asset performance. When correctly formatted, Very Detailed Soil Environment (VDSE) maps and sufficient historical failure records coupled with custom GIS software can be used to report quantitatively on both the spatial and temporal aspects of asset performance regardless of asset material. Such knowledge has tremendous implications for the short, medium and long term management of aging assets.

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Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges Dr Robert van de Graaff and Mr John Kelsall for their assistance with the soil mapping component of this work, and Yarra Valley Water for the provision their asset information

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Principle Consultant, Geocode and Senior Associate at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    Ian Allan

Authors
  1. Ian Allan
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Correspondence to Ian Allan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland University of Technology, Bardolph Place 10, Sunnybank Hills, 4109, Australia

    Joseph Mathew

  2. , Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Lin Ma

  3. Queensland University of Technology, Arrabri Av 192, Mt Ommaney, 4074, Australia

    Andy Tan

  4. Delft University of Technology, Gerard Brandtstraat 107, Leiden, 2332 AK, Netherlands

    Margot Weijnen

  5. University of Cincinnati, Saint Andrews Court 3939, Mason, 45040, USA

    Jay Lee

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Allan, I. (2012). The Role of Very Detailed Soil Environment (VDSE) Maps in Assessing the Performance of Buried Water Pipes. In: Mathew, J., Ma, L., Tan, A., Weijnen, M., Lee, J. (eds) Engineering Asset Management and Infrastructure Sustainability. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-493-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-493-7_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-85729-301-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-493-7

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