Study on failure rate analysis for water distribution pipelines

摘要

Many of the waterworks facilities in Japan were constructed during the rapid economicngrowth period. Today, the deterioration and renovation of these aged facilities havenbecome a pressing issue. There are approximately 600,000km worth of water pipelinesnlaid out across Japan, accounting for about 70% of the nation’s water-related assetsn(totalling ¥40 trillion). To provide water that is safe to use, it is necessary to improvenand innovate water purification technologies; not only that, it is also vital to properlynmaintain and manage the pipelines. The current research aims to apply reliabilitynengineering in the waterworks field as one possible approach and to show its viability;nit will also obtain vital messages revealed within pipeline incident data. In other words,nwe collected the information concerning water distribution pipeline incidents throughnquestionnaire surveys and then analysed the cumulative failure distribution (unreliability)nby pipeline material, the failure probability density and failure rate, among others.