The hydraulic capacity of deteriorating sewer systems

Sewer and wastewater systems suffer from insufficient capacity, construction flaws and pipe deterioration. Consequences are structural failures, local floods, surface erosion and pollution of receiving waters bodies. European cities spend in the order of five billion Euro per year for wastewater network rehabilitation. This amount is estimated to increase due to network ageing. The project CARE-S (Computer Aided RE-habilitation of Sewer Networks) deals with sewer and storm water networks. The final project goal is to develop integrated software, which provides the most cost-efficient system of maintenance, repair and rehabilitation of sewer networks. Decisions on investments in rehabilitation often have to be made with uncertain information about the structural condition and the hydraulic performance of a sewer system. Because of this, decision-making involves considerable risks. This paper presents the results of research focused on the study of hydraulic effects caused by failures due to temporal decline of sewer systems. Hydraulic simulations are usually carried out by running commercial models that apply, as input, default values of parameters that strongly influence results. Using CCTV inspections information as dataset to catalogue principal types of failures affecting pipes, a 3D model was used to evaluate their hydraulic consequences. The translation of failures effects in parameters values producing the same hydraulic conditions caused by failures was carried out through the comparison of laboratory experiences and 3D simulations results. Those parameters could be the input of 1D commercial models instead of the default values commonly inserted.