Water Asset Management International 2.3 (2006) 04-08

Condition assessment: should you risk it?

V Kenneth Harlow

Brown and Caldwell
USA

Doug Stewart, PE

Orange County Sanitation District
USA

The Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) asked for assistance in formulating a replacement and refurbishment program for a large digester complex. The work was undertaken in several phases, the first of which was a risk-based approach to determining which assets were candidates for detailed condition assessment.

This work showed clearly why such assessments are, in many cases, not good investments. At the same time, the detailed investigation into why assets in the complex have failed in the past, and the frequency and impacts of those failures, pointed the way towards improving the overall performance of the digestion process at the complex.

Full article (PDF Format)