Alternative Approaches to Assessing Asbestos Cement Pipe & Critical Assets Insitu

This investigation is focused on the current technological limitations in the condition assessment of critical water distribution assets and how they can be overcome with new technologies entering into the market. Previously there has been no method that can be utilised to measure the wall thickness at a pin point location of asbestos cement pipes insitu, commonly this has been undertaken exsitu with a medical CT scanner. Emerging innovative technologies such as back scatter CT scanning can now analyse asbestos cement pipe insitu and under normal operating conditions which was previously not possible. Digital radiography is also proving to be valuable when applied to other key components of the water distribution system such as large valves. The advantage of using digital radiography is the ability to scan critical asset insitu such as a large valve in the field without the need to remove the asset. The speed at which data can be obtained in the field with digital radiography can significantly increase the number of critical assets that can be scanned in a single day.