Condition Assessment Techniques for Sewer Pipelines

Sewer pipeline networks become the main concern of modern cities municipalities around the world since these networks are too old and they are reaching their design lifetime; meanwhile, increasing environmental and health requirements, growing demands and tight budgets make it harder to deal with. On the other hand, access and inspect sewer pipeline by human-entry based methods are difficult and risky. To facilitate the condition assessment in sewer pipeline networks current practice is using the available technologies to visually inspect the internal condition of pipelines. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate and compare common practice and innovative technologies in sewer system assessment considering various aspects. Camera based methods (i.e. closed circuit television, zoom camera, and digital scanning) are categorized as visual based technologies. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and sonar are grouped as structural and bedding inspection methods. Also, defect specific and hybrid technologies are explained thoroughly. All of mentioned techniques are compared considering each advantages and drawbacks.

Keywords:

Sewer systems , condition assessment , infrastructure , assessment technologies