Track: Maintenance and Reliability

Abstract

Water is required for the optimal operation of sewerage pipelines, water treatment and wastewater treatment facilities. In the absence of water, it is impossible to achieve adequate sanitation. The provision of water and sanitation services is acknowledged as a human right for all, both for destitute and affluent individuals. As a developing country, South Africa is experiencing rapid growth in its’ number of urban dwellers, and this rapid growth strains sewerage pipelines often leading to clogging, leakage, and deformation. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that affect the reliability of sewerage pipelines and to identify reliability tools that can be employed at different stages of the pipeline lifecycle to enhance reliability. A deductive approach was adopted as the research methodology and a survey questionnaire was employed to obtain the research data from a select engineering population in South Africa, with the test items deduced from a comprehensive literature review.  The research population was comprehensive, and snowball sampling was utilized to obtain information.  The following reliability tools are mostly utilized by industry in South Africa to improve the reliability of sewerage pipelines, namely fault tree analysis, reliability-based maintenance, failure-mode-and-effect analysis, and hazard and operability studies.