Risk of Failure of PCCP with Scattered Wire Breaks

Research on the failure risk of Prestressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP) has been limited to pipes with wire break clusters. However, existing electromagnetic inspection techniques also identify pipes with scattered wire breaks because they produce signal distortions that are quite different from those produced by wire breaks in clusters. In areas of scattered wire breaks, electromagnetic signal distortion is not amenable to accurate interpretation of the number of wire breaks from a calibration test on a PCCP of the same diameter, same design, and prestress class with simulated clusters of induced wire cuts. Further, there is no work performed on failure risk analysis of pipes with scattered wire breaks caused by hydrogen embrittlement (HE) or hydrogen-induced breaks of wires.