An integrated asset management framework for infrastructure drainage pipes

Deterioration of drainage pipes has been identified worldwide as the major cause for pipe failures, which has resulted in huge economic losses and damage to social and environmental health. An integrated approach for proactive management of deteriorating infrastructure assets is increasingly advocated. This is because it fundamentally deals with not only the deterioration and failure consequences of assets taking into account the triple bottom line of sustainable development namely, social-economic-environmental aspects, but also the probabilistic manner of deterioration for risk assessment. This paper presents an integrated asset management framework that was proposed for drainage infrastructure systems in Australia focusing on concrete drainage pipes (i.e. sewer and stormwater pipes made of concrete). The proposed framework will assist industry towards implementation of the mixture of reactive and proactive approach with sustainable objectives by addressing practical challenges such as (1) which pipes should be inspected with high priority? (2) what is the residual strength or condition of pipes given CCTV observed defects? and (3) what deterioration models can predict condition of pipes that are not inspected?