Bjorklund
Standardisation, Certification & Recycling # 1992 Eindhoven
Investigations of failure frequencies in municipal water distribution networks have been performed on several occasions over the past 15 years in Sweden. In a follow-up study, reasons for failure in PVC and PE water pipes during the period 1986-1990 have been studied. It was found that PVC pipes manufactured after -73 have significantly improved failure frequencies compared with pipes manufactured before this date. Pipe failures are rare for PE pipes in general and for PVC pipes manufactured after 1973. Joint failures are 2-4 times more frequent than failures in the pipe itself. The study indicates that for modern PVC and PE pipes, it is probably possible to achieve a failure frequency of around or below 0,l failures/lO km,year which is roughly 10 times less than the average failure rate recorded for the current Swedish distribution network.
