In many Utilities, the main driver for distribution mains rehabilitation has been a quality enhancement programme. Future mains rehabilitation is likely to be based upon capital maintenance (or infrastructure renewals) expenditure. In the UK, under the UK Water Industry (UKWIR) Common Framework for capital maintenance planning, Utilities will need to understand costs and benefits of asset intervention options. Previous research has shown that different structural and non-structural rehabilitation options have qualitatively different impacts on performance. This project will quantify the effects of different rehabilitation options; for example spray on lining, pipe-bursting, sliplining and open-cut. The work will also target industry concern that due to customers' supply pipes, leakage levels cannot be reduced significantly through rehabilitation even when all utility pipes are replaced, by assessing customer leakage (supply pipe and internal plumbing) post rehabilitation. WRc will undertake targeted analysis (based on experience from previous studies) to produce robust values for the impacts of different rehabilitation methods on burst rates and leakage levels on mains/communication pipes. Benefits This analysis of structural and non-structural rehabilitation will produce quantitative values for post rehabilitation performance changes and will enable Utilities to: - Assess maintenance requirements to maintain or improve values for key performance indicators (KPIs) such as leakage level and burst rates.
- Confidently predict the impact of different rehabilitation strategies on system performance.
- Assess the applicability of mains rehabilitation as a leakage reduction tool.
- Produce robust whole life cost estimates for rehabilitation strategies.
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