Ductile iron pipes are widely used to carry various types of fluids. The pipelines require regular maintenance and upkeep. Solutions are sought to track and keep records of underground pipelines.
Ductile iron pipes are widely used to carry various types of fluids. One of their main uses is to carry potable water to the households. The typical water flow rate (potable) is 2 – 3 m/s. The quality of the pipes is of paramount importance as any defects in these pipes can lead to contamination of water. Ducticle iron pipes are also used to transport sewage water and pipe damage will contaminate the soil.
The pipelines require maintenance on a need basis. They also require replacement when the end of their useable life span approaches and/or whenever there is a requirement of increasing the fluid carrying capacity. The water supply schemes are designed for a life of 30 years. However, DI pipes usually have much higher life.
Most of the times, the details of these pipes, in terms of, laying designs, date of laying and their specifications are not available as they are underground. In addition, at present, there are no means to retrieve this information on the site.
In absence of required information, digging is carried out at several places to search for the (correct) pipes as there are other utilities buried in the vicinity of pipe network. Sometimes, the information about the changes made to each section of pipeline, is not available, which leads to a lot of delays in projects. This results in loss of water being transported, loss of revenue, wasted manpower and potential increase in the risk of the pollution of the larger manifolds. Also, due to rapid urbanization, lot of developmental activities are carried out like widening of roads, laying of cables for telecommunication etc does take place and there is no information about the layout of the pipelines. Thus, the digging may result in damaging of water pipes when such activities are carried out. A solution is, therefore, sought to mitigate the above set of problems.
The solution must meet the following requirements:
While developing the solution, the following points must be considered and addressed: