Mitigating the Hidden Costs of Pipeline Sediment Deposition

Sediment deposition in pipelines is an often-overlooked future maintenance headache, which can cause increased headloss and decreased efficiency of water transmission systems. Pipeline designers can better understand the potential for sediment deposition and mitigate the future problems by investigating water quality and developing procedures for maintaining pipelines. Collecting water samples can provide sediment type, size, and quantity within a water source. That data can then be used to calculate the deposition and settling velocities of the anticipated sediment and provide the designer with design criteria for the pipeline. The methods for removing sediment can vary in cost especially if not included in the initial pipeline construction. In the end, determining the anticipated cost of sediment management provides owners with valuable information for operating their transmission systems to the performance they were designed for and saves money in the process.