The main purpose of this blog is to share the knowledge acquired by me in the last fifty years, working in the field of water. While the blog is intended for engineers and engineering managers, We will from time to time address issues of significance for public policy, administration , trainers and others. My focus has been in distribution systems and would like to start with Pipes and Leakage.
Pipe Engineering has been evolving over time and considerable changes in concepts have taken place and will continue to take place . Pipe soil interaction is now better understood and engineers are willing to consider support from soils in a big way. Soil stiffness (modulus) is being recognised as the most important factor in pipe soil performance. In developed countries, the cost of compaction of soil to increase modulus is being compared to the cost of increasing thickness of pipes.The corrosivity of soils has always been seen as an important aspect for metal and concrete pipes. It is necessary that the regulatory authorities recognise these facts and lay guidelines to achieve economy and optimization. I will attempt in the next few blogs to deal with this aspect.
Different countries have different loading conditions for designs of Highways and bridges, which are used for assessing the super imposed loads on pipes. In India the governing Code is published by the Indian Road Congress and Number of different classes of load trains are specified. Unfortunately there is no guidance in any code re what class of load should be used for what type of road. Also although the national highways does not permit any pipes or services within the carriageway there is a tendency to design the pipes for highest class of load. Is it necessary or desirable? Also We will make some suggestions for using specific class of loads for different type of roads, which could eventually be put into codes or manuals. I would also attempt to standardise the process for load computation. This should lead to optimum engineering design of pipes of different materials.
Air in pipelines has played havoc, when not dealt with properly, both in terms of reduced quantity of flow and additional pressures exerted. I will like to discuss it with some cases.
Thrust in pipelines due to change in direction is dealt with by thrust blocks or through pipes with restraint joints. Again there is the question of what support one can get from the soil? Tendency to not assume any support is unjustified. We will look into this aspect.
One of the biggest challenge faced all over the world is to keep unaccounted water/ leakage in water systems to a reasonable level. Those ,who give continuous supply cannot do so if leakages are not controlled. Leakages in Indian Cities and towns are being controlled by restricting the hours of supply and controlling the pressures. If we wish to have continuous supplies with reasonable pressure we have to do something about leakages. Unlike many countries where savings from reduction of leakage can pay for the effort to reduce it, in India savings are too meager as cost of water is heavily subsidized. The methodology for leakage identification in intermittent supplies has to be different than for continuous supplies, as has been demonstrated. However Practitioners with continuous supply background and their methodologies have been making India a guinea pig for last half a century. We will discuss the approach and methodologies we can adopt.We will make recommendation for public policy in this regard.
This is an overview to start with. We will detail out more topics as we proceed, possibly with the interaction of the readers.I will request all who read this blog to share their experiences, success stories and failures which all teach us to do things the right way . I will also like to invite my friend, colleagues and professionals to feel free to contribute to this blog to create better understanding amongst practitioners in general , to improve our national and state policies and also improve codes, manuals and practices.
Pipe Engineering has been evolving over time and considerable changes in concepts have taken place and will continue to take place . Pipe soil interaction is now better understood and engineers are willing to consider support from soils in a big way. Soil stiffness (modulus) is being recognised as the most important factor in pipe soil performance. In developed countries, the cost of compaction of soil to increase modulus is being compared to the cost of increasing thickness of pipes.The corrosivity of soils has always been seen as an important aspect for metal and concrete pipes. It is necessary that the regulatory authorities recognise these facts and lay guidelines to achieve economy and optimization. I will attempt in the next few blogs to deal with this aspect.
Different countries have different loading conditions for designs of Highways and bridges, which are used for assessing the super imposed loads on pipes. In India the governing Code is published by the Indian Road Congress and Number of different classes of load trains are specified. Unfortunately there is no guidance in any code re what class of load should be used for what type of road. Also although the national highways does not permit any pipes or services within the carriageway there is a tendency to design the pipes for highest class of load. Is it necessary or desirable? Also We will make some suggestions for using specific class of loads for different type of roads, which could eventually be put into codes or manuals. I would also attempt to standardise the process for load computation. This should lead to optimum engineering design of pipes of different materials.
Air in pipelines has played havoc, when not dealt with properly, both in terms of reduced quantity of flow and additional pressures exerted. I will like to discuss it with some cases.
Thrust in pipelines due to change in direction is dealt with by thrust blocks or through pipes with restraint joints. Again there is the question of what support one can get from the soil? Tendency to not assume any support is unjustified. We will look into this aspect.
One of the biggest challenge faced all over the world is to keep unaccounted water/ leakage in water systems to a reasonable level. Those ,who give continuous supply cannot do so if leakages are not controlled. Leakages in Indian Cities and towns are being controlled by restricting the hours of supply and controlling the pressures. If we wish to have continuous supplies with reasonable pressure we have to do something about leakages. Unlike many countries where savings from reduction of leakage can pay for the effort to reduce it, in India savings are too meager as cost of water is heavily subsidized. The methodology for leakage identification in intermittent supplies has to be different than for continuous supplies, as has been demonstrated. However Practitioners with continuous supply background and their methodologies have been making India a guinea pig for last half a century. We will discuss the approach and methodologies we can adopt.We will make recommendation for public policy in this regard.
This is an overview to start with. We will detail out more topics as we proceed, possibly with the interaction of the readers.I will request all who read this blog to share their experiences, success stories and failures which all teach us to do things the right way . I will also like to invite my friend, colleagues and professionals to feel free to contribute to this blog to create better understanding amongst practitioners in general , to improve our national and state policies and also improve codes, manuals and practices.
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