Prioritizing water distribution pipe renewal based on seismic risk and construction cost

Natural disasters such as earthquakes can cause damage to water distribution pipe, resulting in water interruption. For a contingency plan for earthquakes, calculating the possibility of failure and the consequence of failure are necessary. The empirical formula for the vulnerability of water distribution pipe after earthquake was developed considering deterioration effect with aging in this study. The degree of water outage was assumed to be a consequence of failure. The earthquake risk with pipe aging was obtained through the product of them. Although the risk alone might be used to prioritize pipe network improvement, it was recommended to consider the construction cost as well. It was also proposed to use a score-based method by graphically tabulating construction cost and risk. The methodology proposed was demonstrated on a real-scale water distribution pipe in Korea. The improved prioritization using the scoring method will help create a future earthquake preparedness plan for a water distribution system.