Awards flow for pipes project

The International Water Association’s Project Innovation Award (PIA) for Applied Research is the latest recognition of the collaborative research “Advanced Condition Assessment and Pipe Failure Prediction Project”.

This Award, presented at the World Water Congress and Exhibition, October 2016, acknowledges significant outcomes which can improve water pipe inspection and prediction of pipe failure, reducing renewal/maintenance costs and improving reliability and customer service.

“Tools developed by the project team are now being used by utility partners to enhance internal operations, improve customer service and reduce on-going maintenance renewal costs,” says  Associate Professor and project lead Jaime Valls Miro, from the UTS Centre for Autonomous Systems.

This international project addresses the escalating problems the water industry faces because of the failure of ageing buried pipes in water supply and distribution networks. With more than $500bn worth of critical pipe assets in Australia, the UK and US alone, water authorities urgently need to be able to predict where and when major failures of critical pipes will occur, and put effective, long term preventative measures in place.

The AU$16m, six-year international research collaboration was led by Sydney Water with Monash University as leader researcher, supported by UTS and the University of Newcastle.

The project has produced significant outcomes to improve water pipe inspection and prediction of pipe failure to reduce renewal/maintenance costs and to improve reliability and customer service. Specifically, it has produced innovative models to predict the probability of pipe failure verified through field case studies, a world first calibrated model to predict the long-term exterior corrosion of cast iron pipes, and enhanced interpretations of existing pipe CA tool results though innovative machine learning techniques. These will help water utilities with innovative and cost-effective ways to detect potential critical pipe failure in their networks.

Project overview video available here.

Earlier this year, the project also won the Australian Water Association’s National Research Innovation Award.