Guidelines for Evaluating Aging Penstocks

"Guidelines for Evaluating Aging Penstocks" is intended to provide a useful guide to information and engineering techniques for evaluating aging penstocks. This guide covers penstocks constructed of steel, concrete, and wood before 1950. In order to do this, it provides general information applicable to the assessment of all penstocks, such as: methods to obtain historical data pertaining to design, construction, and operation of a penstock; procedures to analyze the existing condition of the penstock; and study techniques for remaining service life assessments. In addition, it discusses field testing and the types of safety concerns to expect at a typical facility. Finally, the guidelines provide details specific to steel, concrete, and wood penstocks and their respective design codes, criteria, construction, and fabrication practices. Example case studies for steel, concrete and masonry, and wood-stave penstocks appear in the appendixes.