Rethinking Collection System Cleaning Using Acoustic Inspection

Abstract

Setting up a utility’s preventative maintenance program for their gravity-fed collection system’s cleaning involves recognizing that many pipe segments scheduled for cleaning will not need it. But, this cost of over cleaning must be balanced against insufficient maintenance resulting in excessive overflows. We present herein a new diagnostic tool, the Sewer Line – Rapid Assessment Tool or SL-RAT™. The SL-RAT is an onsite inspection device developed by InfoSense with the support of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities (CMU). The SL-RAT diagnostic capability allows cleaning requirements for pipe segments to be economically prioritized prior to conducting cleaning operations. We show that significant cost savings can be achieved through: reduced asset condition assessment costs, reduced cleaning-related overflows, and reduced nonvalue added cleaning effort. In this paper, CMU Case Studies are reviewed and used to show how the SL-RAT acoustic inspection system can be used to establish a Sewer Line Condition Based Maintenance (SL-CBM™) program.