Status, needs and possibilities for service life prediction and estimation of district heating distribution networks

An optimised and proactive maintenance strategy aims to maximise the economical profit, minimise environmental impacts and keep the risk of failure to a low level. Implementation of such a strategy in the context of district heating requires efforts and abilities for predicting future performances and estimating service life of district heating components. A literature review on failures (damages and performance reductions) occurring on district heating pipes, reveals that failures in district heating pipes are mainly leaks due to corrosion or mechanical impacts and reduced thermal insulation performance: leaks being the more serious damage type. A feasible service life estimation method for this type of damage is the Factor Method. Since the application of this method within the context of DH pipes has not been found in other publications, this paper focuses on describing the method and discusses the possibilities on how to apply it in two specific cases with respect to leakage: service life estimation of repaired district heating pipe sections (i.e. maintenance of district heating network) and of district heating pipes in new or extended district heating networks. Particular attention is paid to which modifying factors should be considered and how to quantify them.