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Concrete pipes represent the backbone of the municipal storm and wastewater collection systems of Ontario, Canada. Industry and academia partnered on a research effort that aimed at developing new precast-concrete pipe products that provide added value to the final user in comparison with existing products. This paper describes a full-scale experimental evaluation of the design, manufacturing, and performance aspects of a "cellular" concrete pipe, a precast concrete pipe in which multiple continuous conduits were incorporated within its wall. Two fully-instrumented prototype segments of the proposed cellular concrete pipe were manufactured using standard dry-cast manufacturing procedures. The pipe segments were subjected to a D-load test to evaluate their structural performance. The observed structural performance was found to be comparable to solid-wall specimens, particularly when a four-conduit configuration was used. Of the six materials used as conduits, PVC and aluminum were found to perform the best. The presence of the conduits appears to delay the on-set of major cracks, thus increasing the D-load value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precast concrete pipe industry is in continuous pursuit to add value to its products to strengthen its market competitiveness against other pipe products. The research reported in this paper aimed at developing a new class of precast concrete pipes that will provide added value to the final user in comparison with existing products. The technology developed by the authors consists of lenses of a porous material that are used to create "conduits" within the wall of a precast concrete pipe, which are continuous across adjacent segments. These conduits can accommodate telecommunication lines (i.e., fibre optics) and other small diameter utilities. The concrete pipe provides protection for the smaller conduits while conserving underground right-of-way space. This paper describes the results of an extensive numerical study undertaken to evaluate the technical viability of the proposed conduit system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]