Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | DECEMBER 2019 | 25 from the network. Detecting these leaks using SmartBall and similar techniques allows water companies to pro-actively plan repairs before the pipes burst, thus reducing costs and disruption to custom- ers. Regular inspection is important as changing weather conditions can result in ground movement which will lead to new leaks occurring." Before building the new water main, Murphy inspected the integrity of the existing pipes with Smartball and found historic issues with gaskets in the joints that weren't as significant as believed. This meant localised repairs could be made to the network at a significant sav- ing to SES Water. Continues Mullan: "Two existing mains in the catchment had been run on reduced flows owing to a belief that the mains had passed their useful life span. During the development of the design the picture relating to these two mains became less certain as anecdotal evidence began to emerge that the existing mains were actually in good condition and that the gaskets caused the issues. The Mur- phy approach changed with this informa- tion and to ensure that we provided our client with the best return for their capital investment we consulted with our supply chain to see what systems could be used to determine the integrity of the mains be- fore committing SES Water to a significant and potentially unnecessary investment. The result of the survey concluded that the anecdotal accounts of the main were true but more importantly that the status of the gaskets on the mains were not as bad as believed either." With initial results from the survey suggesting that there were no significant problems with the integrity of the two pipelines, further analysis of the data collected will now take place to provide detailed results. This data will be used to identify any rehabilitation required before the pipe- lines are re-purposed for use as pumping mains rather than gravity distribution pipelines. Mullan confirmed that the company is now hoping to roll out the technology amongst other water companies. He said: "Murphy are keen to explore this technol- ogy across our water business to enable us to ensure the best capital investment returns for our clients. The technology enables us to provide confidence to our partners that we are using the latest technologies to ensure that the correct decisions are being made relating to their capital investments. Murphy are keen to ensure that we are an active partner with all our clients ensuring that we aid them in reaching the best decisions for their customers. Webber added: "WRc would be pleased to discuss the benefits of this and other leak detection techniques to aid water companies with reducing leakage from their trunk mains network – helping them to achieve greater efficiencies and water loss reduction – as will be required by Ofwat." Future innovation According to both Mullan and Webber innovation will continue to be of massive importance to the water sector, both now and in the future. "Technology like SmartBall helps us make better informed decisions to focus our energy on the most pressing needs to enable our industry to continue to meet the needs of a changing society," notes Mullan. "The climate crisis is likely to place an increased burden on all our lives and part of the solution to this will be innovation and ensuring that we meet the challenges of a changing planet. " Adds Webber: "Leakage reduction efforts using traditional techniques such as metering (to identify which zones have higher levels of leakage) and listening sticks (to pinpoint the individual leaks) have broadly plateaued with most water companies reaching their "economic level of leakage". Innovation is needed to pro- vide new techniques to be able to detect leaks which, to date, have been impos- sible to find. That said, both SmartBall and WRc's Sahara have been available for nearly 20 years but are still only just being adopted by water companies. The water sector wants to move towards smarter networks, allowing them to identify potential locations where water mains are beginning to deteriorate so planning can be commenced to maintain and repair pipes before they burst and cause major disruption to their customers. "The water sector faces a number of significant challenges, including planning for a resilient and affordable water supply, improving the natural environment and mitigating the impacts of climate change. The sector needs to continue to ensure operational resilience to extreme events and increased system use, while improv- ing customer service to meet evolving customer demands." Murphy inspected the integrity of the existing pipes with Smartball.