SBIR Phase I: Water Distribution Network Condition Assessment Instrumentation

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将专注于为供水管道行业开发仪器，以评估一套全面的常见供水管道失效模式。水务行业面临着基础设施老化、维护需求快速增长的问题，同时面临预算限制和降低成本的外部压力。未能维护这些系统会导致许多问题，包括1)效率低下导致能源使用和成本增加，或客户服务问题，2)水质差导致味道或颜色差，或存在危险病原体，以及3)交付失败，每年造成28亿美元的损失。拟议的仪器满足了在市政供水和输电线路内进行状况评估的全球需求。美国环境保护署(EPA)预测，从现在到2030年，仅美国的输配水系统就需要投资2475亿美元。作为识别和修复老化的饮用水系统的努力的一部分，环境保护局最近确认，有必要使用低成本的检查方法，对所有管道类型中的高风险位置进行筛查，以便进一步评估。拟议的工具提供了新的功能，以满足这些行业确定的需求。故障模式可能会导致广泛的负面影响，从能源损失到收入损失，再到灾难性的故障和生命损失。拟议的仪表引入了创新技术来检测、识别和定位代表供水管网内故障模式和/或故障模式前兆的故障。该项目将研究广泛的传感器测量协议，并使用先进的统计信号处理和模式识别技术来利用测量数据。可靠的故障位置预测将消除过度维护的成本，同时防止因故障而产生的重大成本。利用这一工具将使公用事业公司能够更有效地平衡维护资源分配和管道故障相关风险之间的权衡。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will focus on the development of instrumentation for the water pipeline industry to assess a comprehensive set of common water pipe failure modes. The water industry faces an aging infrastructure with a fast growing need for maintenance, while at the same time facing budgetary constraints and external pressures to reduce costs. Failure to maintain these systems can lead to numerous issues, including 1) inefficiencies leading to increased energy usage and cost, or customer service issues, 2) poor water quality resulting in poor taste or color, or the presence of dangerous pathogens, and 3) delivery failure, which costs $2.8 billion yearly. The proposed instrumentation addresses the global need for condition assessment within municipal distribution and transmission water lines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forecasts that U.S. water transmission and distribution systems alone will require investment of $247.5 billion between now and 2030. As part of this effort to identify and rehabilitate aging drinking water systems, the EPA recently identified the need "for low cost inspection methods to conduct screening for high risk locations in all pipe types for further assessment". The proposed instrumentation provides new capabilities to meet these industry-identified needs. Failure modes may result in a wide spectrum of negative effects ranging from energy loss to revenue loss to catastrophic failure with loss of life. The proposed instrumentation introduces innovative technology to detect, identify, and locate faults representing failure modes and/or precursors to failure modes within a water distribution pipeline network. This project will investigate an extensive sensor measurement protocol and exploit the measurement data using advanced statistical signal processing and pattern recognition techniques. Reliable prediction of fault locations will eliminate the cost of over-maintenance while preventing the significant costs incurred due to failures. Utilization of this instrumentation will allow utilities to more effectively balance the trade-offs between allocation of maintenance resources and the risks associated with pipeline failures.