New lifetime prediction techniques for buried polymer pipes

聚合物（即塑料）管道是加拿大市政地下基础设施的重要组成部分，用于雨水和饮用水应用。 这些埋地结构的设计需要考虑土壤和聚合物结构，以及两者之间的土壤-结构相互作用。 但是，它们能持续多久呢？ 目前，没有人能肯定地说。 聚合物材料的使用预期是“至少75年”，通常基于理想条件下获得的有限数据或有根据的猜测。 虽然这是合理的第一步，但加拿大的市政工程师和城市规划师需要更多。 聚合物水管的寿命是75年还是150年，对我们日益老化和不断发展的城市中心有着数十亿美元的影响。 因此，Discovery研究计划的总体愿景是创造新的基础工程科学知识，培训15名高素质人员，并开发合理的预测技术-所有这些都是为了评估加拿大市政地下基础设施的聚合物组件将持续多久。 *** 这是第一次，长期的土壤-结构相互作用将模拟使用全尺寸的物理实验在高温下，在实际结构在其埋置配置，并在聚合物降解已被加速进行。 这种高度原创的方法将使我们能够消除猜测，并最终确定故障机制，故障发生的时间，影响故障的因素，以及可以做些什么来延长寿命。 这将是加拿大市政当局和世界各地城市如何管理我们庞大而老化的下水道和水管网络的突破性进展。 了解管道如何失效，并拥有工具来预测新管道的使用寿命或现有管道的剩余寿命，是工程师用于增加这些公共资产寿命并优化维修和更换投资的管理计划的重要投入。 新的寿命预测技术也将被制造商和工程师用来研究特定类别的埋地结构。 对控制使用寿命的基本机制有了新的理解，就可以开发几何结构改进或材料改进，以延长新建基础设施的使用寿命。 制造商和用户将首次对使用寿命进行合理的估计，取代指数值和“判断”。这将使公用事业公司能够更明智地选择产品，加拿大制造商能够更有效地在国际上开发和销售产品。 *** 该发现研究计划还将为15名高素质人员（5名博士，5名硕士，5名BASc）提供特殊的培训机会，这些人员具有岩土工程和土木工程顾问非常高的地下基础设施专业知识。

Polymer (i.e. plastic) pipes are vital components of Canada's municipal buried infrastructure for stormwater and drinking water applications. Design of these buried structures requires consideration of both the soil and the polymer structure, as well as the soil-structure interactions that develop between the two. But, just how long will they last? Currently, no one can say with certainty. Polymer materials are used with the expectation that they will last ‘at least 75 years', often based on limited data obtained under idealized conditions or educated guesses. While a reasonable first step, Canadian municipal engineers and city planners need more. Whether a polymer water pipe will last 75 or 150 years has billion-dollar ramifications for our ageing and growing urban centres. The overarching vision of this Discovery research program is therefore to create new fundamental engineering science knowledge, train 15 highly qualified personnel, and develop rational predictive techniques – all to evaluate how long the polymer components of Canada's municipal buried infrastructure will last. *** For the first time, long-term soil-structure interactions will be simulated using full-scale physical experiments at elevated temperature, conducted on actual structures in their buried configurations, and where polymer degradation has been accelerated. This highly-original approach will allow us to remove the speculation and finally identify the failure mechanism, the time it occurs, factors affecting it, and what can be done to prolong lifetime. This would be a groundbreaking advancement in how Canadian municipalities, and cities world-wide, manage our vast and ageing sewer and water pipe networks. Knowing how pipes can fail and having tools to predict how long a new pipe will last, or the remaining life of an existing pipe, are essential inputs to management plans that engineers use to increase longevity of these public assets and optimize investments in repair and replacement. The new lifetime prediction techniques will also be used by manufacturers and engineers to investigate specific classes of buried structures. Equipped with new understanding of the underlying mechanisms controlling service life, geometry refinements or materials improvements can be developed to extend the service life of newly built infrastructure. Manufacturers and users will, for the first time, have rational estimates of service lives, replacing index values and ‘judgement'. This will allow utilities to choose products more wisely, and Canadian manufacturers to develop and market products internationally more effectively. *** This Discovery research program will also provide exceptional training opportunities for 15 highly-qualified personnel (5 PhD, 5 MASc, 5 BASc) with buried infrastructure expertise that is in very high demand by geotechnical and civil engineering consultants.