Intelligent System for Condition Monitoring of Underground Pipelines

Pipeline infrastructure is decaying at an accelerating rate due to reduced funding, insufficient quality control resulting in poor installation, little or no inspection and maintenance, and a general lack of uniformity and improvement in design, construction and operation practices, among other things. Developing an intelligent system can provide fast and reliable decision-making tools that are needed to handle the large volume of deteriorating buried pipeline infrastructure systems, particularly water and wastewater pipelines, that pose serious threats to environment if they fail. The focus of this article is to develop state-of-the-art concepts and technology for buried pipeline system data acquisition, data interpretation, and utilization of the data for an intelligent renewal of buried infrastructure. Such a system could automate in real time much of the pipeline data acquisition, interpretation, and evaluation process, and capture the experience and judgment of expert utility engineers in performing condition assessment and identification of appropriate rehabilitation and maintenance strategies.