Large-Diameter Steel Pipe for Water Transmission

Large-Diameter Steel Pipe for Water Transmission examines steel water-pipe procurement as an installed-system problem, rather than as the purchase of a steel shell alone.

The paper develops an author-created Installed-System Procurement Model that begins with the service and surge basis, then traces fabrication and specials, internal and external protection, joints and fittings, transportability, site installation, test support and final handover evidence.

Its central proposition is that the correct commercial and technical unit of analysis is the installed water-pipe system. Pipe shell, fabricated interfaces, protection systems, joints, logistics, construction support and handover evidence should therefore be evaluated together rather than optimized independently.

The paper maps the current AWWA steel-pipe standards family as a set of technical interface references rather than as the architecture of the proposed model. Publicly referenced documents include AWWA C200 for welded steel water pipe and related standards addressing cement-mortar lining/coating, field welding, flanges, fabricated dimensions, liquid-epoxy coatings and linings, fusion-bonded epoxy, extruded polyolefin exterior coatings and installation.

The analysis emphasizes five practical procurement principles: define the service before selecting the product configuration, map the full AWWA interface environment rather than relying on C200 alone, compare installed value rather than mill price alone, treat large diameter as a logistics variable, and include schedule resilience in procurement decisions where programme-delivery exposure is material.

Public PCK and Northwest Pipe cases, together with the published Lake Texoma project account, are used only as attributed execution examples. They are not treated as universal procurement rules or evidence of supplier superiority.

The paper is intended for water authorities, utilities, project owners, EPC contractors, consulting engineers, procurement teams, package engineers, QA/QC professionals, construction teams and commercial teams involved in large-diameter steel water-transmission projects. It is a manufacturer-neutral practitioner research framework based on publicly available information and does not constitute a water-pipeline design standard, project specification, supplier ranking or construction procedure.

Author-written abstract, reproduced from the authoritative Zenodo DOI record.