To manage remaining useful life of a critical metallic force main, City of Cape Girardeau deploys SmartBall® as screening tool for condition assessment to identify gas pockets and high likelihood areas of internal corrosion.
Desktop studies commonly incorporate data such a pipe material, class, age, and failure history to assist in preliminary condition assessment programs without someone necessarily ever seeing the pipeline. Utilities often use desktop data as an initial step to help shape a management strategy.
For a higher level of condition assessment data, the health of a pipeline can be determined by combining desktop studies with an inline SmartBall leak and gas pocket survey, leading to focused test pits in areas where gas pockets indicate potential internal corrosion, the most common cause of ductile iron force main failure.
As proof of concept, Pure Technologies used the free-flowing SmartBall platform as part of a recent DIP force main condition assessment for City of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.