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As we have stated to our clients many times over:

“The deterioration and failure of a piping system after 75 years of service is an expected and unavoidable physical act of nature.  That same failure after 2-1/2 years is someone’s fault.”

In a growing number of examples, premature piping failures are being looked at from a litigation viewpoint; with massive financial losses common due to replacement costs, lost tenant confidence and revenue, and water damages, if incurred.  Piping failures are clearly on the rise due to a large number of contributing factors well documented throughout this Internet site.

• Substantial Losses

Financial losses of over $10 million are not unrealistic for a large scale piping failure.  The failure of a single 2 in. galvanized steel pipe fitting caused one Philadelphia building property over $8 million in water and property damage alone.  To one New York City property – a $1.1 million loss after a condenser water piping failure flooding 10 floors that was in fact predicted to occur.  And to a large Texas hi-rise office building, more than $12 million in losses.  To a critical data center, the common citation for a major piping failure and loss of service is $1 million in losses per minute.

Previously only heard about through inside channels, pipe failures are now covered by mainstream media giving such events widespread exposure – such as the 2017 failure of a small threaded pipe nipple at The Manchester VA Medical Center, which shut down the entire facility.  Underground steam pipe explosions, which are becoming more frequent as our piping infrastructure ages, always create sensational headline news footage.

While there are clear examples of fault, such as the deliberate substitution to a thinner pipe schedule or lower quality foreign piping products contrary to design specifications, many examples of pipe failure exist in the blurry and more difficult to define realm of multiple causes and contributing factors.  Failures are often related to different corrosion conditions existing simultaneously; further compounded by a lack of response to what may have been known or should have been known by those in charge.  In others, it is simply old age, and the fact that no piping system will last forever.

Where a failure has occurred and the problem pipe section has been removed, metallurgical testing can often define the specific cause of the failure and resolve the issue.  That is – if the sample holding all the answers has not already been tossed out, removed by the contractor, or sold for scrap.  The answer to many piping failures are held by the failed section itself, and if even the most remote chance of legal action, should be safeguarded.

A single weld failure due to poor workmanship is one such example.  Failures at soldered copper pipe connections are clearly on the rise, with only metallurgical testing capable of providing an answer.  Thread leaks due to insufficient pipe sealant, improper fit-up, a failure at welded galvanized steel pipe, a catastrophic piping blowout where copper pipe as soldered to stainless steel using regular solder, a steel plug blow-out from an abandoned copper domestic water line – all such events suggest a distinct cause of failure rather than a systemwide issue.  Metallurgical testing may answer the question entirely, or instead point to other possible initiating causes requiring further investigation.

Widespread internal corrosion may have been caused by poor clean-out and passivation of the metal, the lack of chemical water treatment the first few months, the actions or inactions of the building owners and operators, or a failure of  the water treatment contractor to maintain the chemical feed equipment.  Such a large volume of factors typically influence a corrosion related piping disaster that upon first inspection, seems almost impossible to establish a cause.

• Rarely One Simple Answer

Different piping systems are impacted by entirely different corrosion issues and causes.  Internal corrosion issues are completely unrelated to external corrosion events.  Corrosion activity at domestic hot and cold water systems can vary greatly, and are always related to pipe material and age.  Dry and pre-action fire pipe corrosion is a separate entity from wet fire sprinkler systems.  Hot water heating and cold water pipe, often grouped together by their HVAC role, have completely different vulnerabilities.  In fact, a simple failure at a condenser water system has many potential causes and issues to address:

• • • Was the piping system chemically cleaned, fully flushed, and effectively passivated?
    • Was chemical treatment provided immediately upon start-up and monitored effectively?
    • Was the pipe added to an existing system of older piping?
    • Are dead-end, crossover, and low flow zones present to the piping layout?
    • Did the failure occur at or near a low flow area?
    • How well have chemical records been maintained?
    • What is the source country of the pipe?  Was foreign pipe excluded from installation?
      
    • Is threaded schedule 10 or schedule 7 pipe installed?
    • Is ERW seamed pipe involved?  And is the seam defective or incomplete?
    • Is unproven and questionable corrosion control technology involved?
    • Does the ASTM stamp on the pipe match the design specifications?
    • Is water filtration provided?  And if so, is it properly installed?
    • Is there a galvanic issue between dissimilar metals involved?
    • Have inappropriate piping materials been installed for the service?
    • What corrosion monitoring has been performed?  What have been the results?
    • Have corrective actions been taken?
    • And the listing continues …

• Interests Change Perspective

Assigning responsibility for any piping failure is always a complex issue often related to the individuals performing the investigation or repair, and their own potential interest in the final results.  Many HVAC contractors will gladly change out pipe after each failure without recommending an investigation to the cause.  A piping design engineer creating multiple future dead end and low flow areas for particulates to settle is likely to blame the chemical treatment provider, while the chemical treatment provider will cite the filtration unit as unsatisfactory to capture rust particulates.  The water filtration representative may raise the need for larger or additional filtration units to capture more iron oxide corrosion by-product rather than recommend investigating the cause of a high iron oxide load.

Recommending more filtration capacity to maintain clean cooling tower water while the filtration which exists is not installed correctly will help satisfy a sales quota, but never benefit the client.  Addressing the symptom on a problem, such as filtering rust product from the piping system, without raising issue to other obvious factors promoting that high corrosion condition, is at the very least – disingenuous.

The new chemical treatment provider will always be blamed for prior years of corrosion control, or lack of it, from other vendors possibly decades before, and especially where corrosion coupon records have been favorable.  Water treatment specialists, as well as chemical treatment consultants, will supply years of favorable corrosion coupon reports even knowing such estimates have nothing to do with the wall loss at the pipe itself.  In fact, corrosion coupon results are often so inaccurate as to be virtually worthless.  The supplier of ERW welded seamed pipe will blame water filtration and corrosion control for its premature failure, while the chemical treatment provider will in turn cite an incomplete and defective manufacturer’s weld seam.  In fact, for each of the above potential causative issues to just condenser water service, most can be used as either an allegation or defense depending upon argument and interpretation.

Without hard evidence, what results is an endless conflict based upon generally inaccurate assumptions and erroneous data provided by individuals paid or having some stake in the findings in one direction or the another.  In the worst examples we have seen, individuals having nothing whatsoever to do with an issue have been pulled into conflicts quite unfairly, and based entirely upon defective arguments.  As effectively as a proper piping failure investigation can direct blame, it can also provide substantative evidence to the lack of any culpability.

• Where To Start

A thorough review of all known hard facts relating to the issue, and a critical review of all available diagnostic testing or laboratory reports is certainly a first step to any successful legal case.  Most ultrasonic test reports are nothing more than a simple spreadsheet of raw wall thickness data with no interpretation whatsoever.   Upon closer look, many may provide wall thickness data totally beyond the realm of all possibility – as we recently documented for a case where 58% of all wall thickness measurements supporting an argument that there was no corrosion problem were well above even schedule 80 specifications.   In other words, they do not make pipe that thick for chill water service – as one “corrosion expert” claimed!

First and foremost, it is important to save and tag any section of failed or leaking pipe which has been removed.  Even though no litigation may be planned, that failed section of pipe holds the answer to why it failed, and becomes an important starting point for any form of investigation.  It is simply remarkable to how often the most critically important piece of evidence to a failure condition is immediately thrown away; after which questions are raised as to why it failed.

With so many different contributing causes of a corrosion problem and its resulting piping failure, the most important next step is to perform a thorough and complete ultrasonic based investigation which should thoroughly document:

• Pipe condition
• Its fitness for future service
• Whether corrosion activity is at, above, or below industry standards for that service
• The potential for immediate / additional failures
• Issues related to or responsible for high corrosion activity, i.e. dead ends, galvanic activity, incomplete ERW seam, etc.
• Secondary issues. i.e. lack of filtration, level of maintenance
• System vulnerability

Where a specific failure has occurred, metallurgical testing is unquestionably the best first investigative tool.  After that, ultrasound will define whether the problem exists elsewhere, and to what severity.  There is a significant difference in the information provided by ultrasound over metallurgical testing that is not fully understood:

• • • Ultrasound

An ultrasonic based survey of 100 examples of condenser water pipe completed over two days will very well document system condition, identify its weakness, and define its expected future service life.  By having full access to the pipe, quick spot testing can identify specific areas of concern for documentation.  A ultrasonic investigation, therefore, is far more likely to define not only average corrosion conditions present, but also highlight those specific areas of greater weakness.  Test locations are not predetermined, but are instead identified as the investigation progresses.

• • • Metallurgical

In contrast, metallurgical testing  is entirely predetermined either by the location of the failure, or by random speculation.  Most pipe sections cut out for metallurgical testing relate to pipe where it is is easiest to remove rather than where it will produce the most important information.  Smaller diameter pipe is commonly removed since it can be isolated.  For almost all building properties today, it is nearly impossible to shut down and drain a large diameter main riser or some component thereof in order to cut out a section.  Given the combined high costs involved to cut out and metallurgically test one pipe section, a very limited number of pipe sections are generally accessed.

A finding of widespread corrosion loss throughout a large condenser water system would dispel argument made by the chemical treatment provider to a filtration problem alone, or the suggestion that the lack of dielectric fittings are responsible.  Since wall loss is directly proportional to the size and volume of internal rust deposits and tuberculation, ultrasonic testing can precisely direct a remote video inspection of the pipe to provide incredibly illustrative visual proof to the corrosion damage incurred.  Showing a remote internal video of 5 year old pipe having the same corrosion characteristics as the Titanic’s outer hull presents a powerful descriptive argument to damage which should never have occurred.

Ultrasound is accurate, reliable, cost-effective, and if performed property, will produce a clear piping assessment.  It will define if a problem is localized due to a low flow condition, or widespread throughout the facility.  An ultrasonic test report which provides a spreadsheet of numbers for someone else to decipher and analyze is rarely of any benefit, even to most mechanical consulting engineers, and will provide no guidance to a jury.

An ultrasonic thickness report producing results completely outside the realm of possibility, as we have seen in many examples, is far worse and greatly detrimental to any case.  Basing ones entire case or defense upon worthless ultrasonic test results will stop everything once such basic mistakes are challenged.  In contrast, it is the ultrasonic test results in combination with an investigator also well familiar with corrosion, plant operations, the inherent vulnerabilities of different piping systems, specific corrosion issues, and common piping failure mechanisms, that greatly amplifies its value.

• Settlement

Defining a corrosion problem or piping failure event that is proven ultrasonically is a major benefit in most beginning litigation cases.  Often, it is necessary to further discount other potential contributing factors in order to accurately and precisely focus blame.  Presenting investigative findings with evidence that is beyond any possible argument or opposing rebuttal often results in settlement.

© Copyright 2023 – William P. Duncan, CorrView International, LLC