Automated Assessment Tool for the Depth of Pipe Deterioration

Defects in underground pipeline images are indicative of the condition of buried infrastructures like sewers and water mains. This paper entitled Automated Assessment Tool for the depth of pipe deterioration presents a three step method which is a simple, robust and efficient one to detect defects in the underground concrete pipes. It identifies and extracts defect-like structures from pipe images whose contrast has been enhanced. We propose to use segmentation and feature extraction using structural elements. The main objective behind using this tool is to find the dimensions of the defect such as the length, width and depth and also the type of defect. The detection of defects in buried pipes is a crucial step in assessing the degree of pipe deterioration for municipal operators. Although the human eye is extremely effective at recognition and classification, it is not suitable for assessing pipe defects in thousands of miles of pipeline because of fatigue, subjectivity and cost. Our objective is to reduce the effort and the labour of a person in detecting the defects in underground pipes.