MedicineEng
Industrial
- Jun 30, 2003
- 609
Hi All:
We are having quite a few copper pipe leaks in our property's hot water system.
These occur almos exclusively in the vicinity of elbows and by the damage profile seems to be provoked by erosion corrosion due to high water velocity. We measured the water flow at the balancing valves and it seems to be well below the typical 1.5m/s. Since the leakages are clustered in a couple of locations instead of spread all over the property, seems to indicate a local problem and not a property wide one, like incorrect chemical treatment for instance.
One of the hypothesis being thrown in the air is workmanship and copper annealing, being that there was an overheat of the metal during brazing process , which annealed the metal and made it permanently softer and thus more subject to the effects of erosion corrosion.
I was trying to find some technical paper to support the theory that overheating copper pipe permanently softens the material, but I was not able to find it.
Is this just a myth or is there any truth behind this?
thanks for your help.
We are having quite a few copper pipe leaks in our property's hot water system.
These occur almos exclusively in the vicinity of elbows and by the damage profile seems to be provoked by erosion corrosion due to high water velocity. We measured the water flow at the balancing valves and it seems to be well below the typical 1.5m/s. Since the leakages are clustered in a couple of locations instead of spread all over the property, seems to indicate a local problem and not a property wide one, like incorrect chemical treatment for instance.
One of the hypothesis being thrown in the air is workmanship and copper annealing, being that there was an overheat of the metal during brazing process , which annealed the metal and made it permanently softer and thus more subject to the effects of erosion corrosion.
I was trying to find some technical paper to support the theory that overheating copper pipe permanently softens the material, but I was not able to find it.
Is this just a myth or is there any truth behind this?
thanks for your help.