Commonly used for large diameter water transmission mains, water professionals have applied a number of adjacent technologies, such as free-floating or swimming acoustic sensors and electromagnetic sensor arrays to evaluate pipes.
While acoustic sensors have experienced some success in large metallic pipes, vibration transmissions across the surface of PCCP has had limited success.
Alternatively, electromagnetic sensors, while useful in other applications are often challenged to link specifically identified anomalies to actual leak locations or measured quantities.
First manufactured in 1942 as lined cylinder pipe, the prestressing wire was wrapped directly around the steel cylinder, with a second type of PCCP developed in 1952 that has concrete encasement of the steel cylinder on both sides. Known as embedded cylinder pipe, it differs from lined cylinder pipe by the encapsulation of its steel cylinder in a concrete core. Therefore, the prestressing wire is wrapped around the concrete core rather than the steel cylinder as in lined cylinder pipe.