During the decades in which I have managed large and small water utilities throughout the country, I have experienced several challenging scenarios. Whether it was a major oil spill in the river that provided our raw water supply, a winter with sub-zero temperatures and no snow cover where small water mains were frozen solid in the ground, or the total transitioning from a groundwater source to a surface water source with all the different treatment methodology involved, I had never considered the terminology “the new normal.”
Prestressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP) has been used in water and wastewater applications for nearly 80 years. The thought process behind PCCP was sound, in that it would combine concrete's high compressive strength with steel's high tensile strength. However, like many products, PCCP has continued to fall short in the following years in many comparative categories to Ductile iron.
This Blog Reflects Significant Updates for Envision Manual V3. As we know, America's infrastructure is in crisis! According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the estimated investment needed is $1 Trillion over the next 25 years for underground water infrastructure. This investment, as well as the ever-increasing cost of electricity, limited water supply, ever-decreasing natural resources, and environmental concerns, are driving the need for change. Change on how infrastructure is designed and constructed – utilizing more sustainable design and construction practices. ENVISION is designed to provide guidelines for these changes to North American infrastructure. In short, it is a rating system approach very similar to LEED Building Certification; however, with the focus on infrastructure.
Envision not only asks, ‘Are we doing the project right?’ but also, ‘Are we doing the right project?’
What is the maximum internal pressure Ductile iron pipe (DI pipe) can handle, you ask? The simple truth is it depends entirely upon the size of the pipe and its wall thickness. And within any given DI pipe diameter there can be as many as 12 correct yet different answers, given the wide range of intermingled thickness class and pressure class pipe selections available.
Seeing cobwebbing or small cracks in the cement lining of Ductile iron pipe (DI pipe) may raise concern for some and over the years, I’ve had some folks ask me, “Is this acceptable?” And my response is, “Yes, it is, at least to some degree.” Within this Iron Strong Blog, we will discuss Autogenous Healing (au-tog-e-nous), which is defined as the natural process of crack repair that takes place when cement linings come in contact with water.
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