Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MAY 2020 | 23 Jacobs, an Echologics field project manager for Muel- ler Water Products, relates a story from the West Coast of America where the utility was dealing with a variety of water main breaks and smaller failures, aggravated by pockets of corrosive soils. "We detected a water main leak in an area where an emer- gency leak repair had been performed just a few days pri- or," Jacobs recalls. "When we first got there, we had a tough time pinpointing the leak, be- cause a home about 30 metres away had a water heater leak where the constantly spinning water meter put out a louder sound than the water main leak." Once the homeowner shut off the water through the meter, the engineer was able to locate the actual water main leak, but that was not the end of the story. "A couple of days later, a repair crew went out to fix the water main leak we had pinpointed," he relates. "They excavated dry dirt with a back- hoe down to the point where they had cleared enough space to work. A worker went down into the pit as soon as wet dirt appeared, so he could hand- shovel enough space to install a full-circle repair clamp on the main. As he dug down, he found a piece of wood used as a shim to level the pipe during installation. He hit the shim to remove it, and suddenly this hole started filling up with wa- ter and a river of mud started running down the street." Once the water main was shut off and the pipe in- spected, the crew understood exactly what had happened. The wooden shim was sup- porting a 15 cm flap of pipe attached by roughly 1 cm of solid material at one end and surrounded by a series of corrosion pits that essen- tially created one big crescent shape. The flap blew out when the shim was removed. Despite the brief deluge, everyone rec- ognised the value of catching that condition in its infancy. "They essentially took what was a 3.7-lpm leak and created an 1,892-lpm leak in seconds," Jacobs says. "Can you imagine the problems there would have been if that flap had given way in the middle of the night when no one was around to react?" Woodland search An example of the value routine pipeline assessment provides for discovering "hid- den" leaks comes from an Echologics experience with an 80-year-old, 122 cm steel pipeline that ran across an en- tire county — downtown city centres, suburban countryside and heavily wooded forests. "We detected a big spike right in the middle of a section between two chambers we were evaluating in the thickest woodland," Jacobs explains. "We knew there was another chamber half way between the two points we were testing, and thought that might be the location. We started bushwhacking, crossed a creek and fought our way up- hill toward the third chamber we knew was located between our test locations. When we got there, we discovered an air valve inside the chamber had completely rusted off and fallen off the pipe. That was when we realised that the "creek" we crossed to get there was the leak from this water main, running down the hill through the forest." New leaks form continually. The only way to get ahead is to work faster (and smarter) than the leaks. Echologics EchoShore leak detection technology from Mueller Water Products uses mobile data transmission and removes the restrictions of distance associ- ated with radio communica- tions between sensors. Multiple sensors deployed along a main are remotely triggered to synchronise and capture data. The data is automatically transmitted to the cloud platform where it undergoes a multi-staged automatic analysis, breaking down the various dimensions of the data, and analysing for potential points of interest. All this can be achieved in a mat- ter of minutes. High-speed analytics The resulting benefit to the user is high speed accurate analytics for leak detection crew to make informed recom- mendations to best allocate repair crew. Multiple sensors working simultaneously over large distances, instant and timed remote triggering of re- cordings, and automatic deep data analysis are all completed within minutes. These powerful factors combine to allow rapid progress to be made each day, saving more water and reducing the cost of each leak found. EchoShore technology can analyse thousands of kilome- tres of pipe per year, helping utilities save millions of litres per day. LEAKS AND BURSTS Detailed pipeline assessment surveys generate statistical input that can be used to generate reasonable estimates of remaining service life, by pipeline segment, to help utilities prioritise pipe replacement schedules. Report segment Distance ( ) Pipe Material Internal Diameter (in) Client Max. Acceptable Break Rate (brks/ mile/yr) Calculated Break Rate (brks/ mile/hr) Remaining Service Life (yrs) 1 345 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.293 20 to 29 2 565 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.454 20 to 29 7 622 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.289 30 to 39 18 343 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.102 40 to 49 19 487 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.008 50+ 35 605 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.069 50+ 45 523 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.425 20 to 29 49 489 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.336 20 to 29 50 684 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.028 50+ 51 577 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.807 10 to 19 59 323 Spun Cast 6 2.0 0.102 50+ 64 301 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.688 10 to 19 67 337 Spun Cast 8 2.0 0.062 50+ 68 411 Spun Cast 10 2.0 0.008 50+

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