Structural Resilience in Sewer Reconstruction: From Theory to Practice

1

Introduction

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the resilience research, outlining the basic concepts of the structural resilience theory introduced in this book. It then discusses the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, and introduces the main theme of the book, building structural resilience in sewer reconstruction in Tokyo.

Keywords

Resilience approach; system environment; destructive energy; resilience metric; Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident; sewer reconstruction

1.1 Overview of resilience research

1.1.1 The resilience approach, inspired by nature

Fish swim, birds fly, and the seasons change. Nature is full of wonders that have inspired humans from time immemorial in their quest to master extraordinary skills, adapt to and survive amid a changing world, and continue the human race through imitation, imagination, and technological invention. But there are other types of natural wonders that are not as easily observable as the swimming of fish, the flying of birds, and the changing of the seasons. To observe and comprehend these less obvious miraculous workings of nature, logical reasoning and insightful analysis are indispensable. This is how Holling discovered ecological resilience in 1973 in this seminal review paper published by Annual Reviews (Holling, 1973), which begins philosophically with

Individuals die, populations disappear, and species become extinct. That is one view of the world. But another view of the world concentrates not so much on presence or absence as upon the numbers of organisms and the degree of constancy of their numbers … (But) if we are dealing with a system profoundly affected by changes external to it, and continually confronted by the unexpected, the consistency of its behaviour becomes less important than the persistence of the relationships. Attention shifts, therefore, to the qualitative and to questions of existence or not.

This was the harsh reality of nature that Holling used to present his theory of resilience for ecological systems: from two different views of system behavior to a set of external conditions that are characterized by continuous change and disturbance and the occurrence of totally unexpected events, which could profoundly affect the system. Under these harsh conditions, natural ecological systems exhibit another extraordinary behavior, besides the known behavior of stability, which is termed resilience, that is a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables (Holling, 1973).

Decades after the publication of Holling’s paper, resilience theories have expanded into almost all fields of scientific study, from ecology to economic and social sciences, from computer science to engineering studies, all based on the same foundation that Holling used to develop his influential theory. Once again, mankind is trying to learn from nature about this extraordinary property called resilience in order to cope with the changing world in a new age characterized by unprecedented climate change with both predictable and unpredictable consequences, grave natural disasters occurring with increasing frequency, and unexpected calamities even including terrorist attacks. Given the fundamental scientific differences between an ecological system and any other system, from system functions and characteristics to governing mechanisms, it is obvious that this learning process cannot be a simple imitation of a natural phenomenon. Instead, any such system requires an innovative approach, like the sewer system discussed in this book, to achieve resilience when facing change and disturbance that also include slow changes such as the aging of sewer systems.

Thanks to the collective efforts of researchers and practitioners, significant progress has been made on developing resilience-building theories in many important systems, such as socioecological systems and sociotechnical systems, which involve very specific principles and effective practices proposed by people who understand these systems very well, i.e., by system experts. On the other hand, the research community has not yet reached a general consensus on the nature of resilience and there is no uniform resilience metric to quantify resilience for all systems concerned. The prolonged lack of progress on these theoretical and computational aspects of resilience studies has hindered the development of the resilience approach.

Like in any scientific disciplines such as physics, a proved theory focuses on the core issue and reveals the fundamental relationship of the basic elements in a given problem, often in terms of mass, velocity/acceleration, force and energy, providing vital insights for understanding and solving real problems. Similarly, it is hoped that by clarifying the nature of resilience, a general theory on the core issue of resilience applicable to all systems will be formed, along with a uniform resilience metric that can be used to quantify resilience. This would not only help improve the effectiveness of the resilience principles and practices proposed for various systems so far, but also help discover new ones based on a commonly accepted theory of resilience.

1.1.2 System and system environment

Hereafter, a system refers to any one of the natural or human-created/designed systems, including ecological systems, socioecological systems, sociotechnical systems, and computer systems. By definition, a system has spatial and temporal boundaries and is surrounded and influenced by its environment. To avoid possible confusion with the concept of natural environment, the environment of a system in this book is defined explicitly as the system environment, and, depending on the circumstances, a system environment can solely refer to the people who are closely associated with that system. Because of its importance, it is worth emphasizing that for any given system, there is a system environment that supports and interacts with the system and is directly affected by its behavior.

For example, the system environment of the sewer system in Tokyo includes the Tokyo metropolitan area and its population of more than 13 million people who live and work there. The social and ecological fabric of the area is certainly included in the system environment. Similarly, the system environment of a dam–reservoir system includes the upstream and downstream areas and the people who live and work there. Compared with these large and complex system environments of civil infrastructure systems, the system environment of a computer chip embedded in a pacemaker implanted in a patient with heart disease is simply the patient. For real-time systems embedded in a passenger aircraft, the passengers and the crew are part of the system environment which also includes the aircraft itself.

As discussed later, in the case of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which occurred on March 11, 2011 during the Great East Japan Earthquake, the system environment of the nuclear power plant included the whole of Fukushima Prefecture and its population of approximately two million who lived and worked in the region at the time of the accident. Obviously, the surrounding prefectures and ecological systems should also be considered as the extended system environment as they were all affected by the radioactive fallout, although to lesser degrees.

1.1.3 Destructive energy of change and disturbance

As change and disturbance refer to the physical processes by which a certain amount of destructive energy is inflicted on a system from outside and disturbs its normal functioning, the destructive energy of these adverse events is the cause of the subsequent change to the system. Most of the destructive energy is released during a very short time during natural disasters such as an earthquake, flood, landslide, typhoon, or tsunami. But the energy can also be released slowly over a long time, such as the aging of sewer systems that involves complex material and structural deterioration and damage processes and may take several decades to progress, and prolonged droughts that can last for several years and severely damage farming and animal husbandry.

In the case of safety–critical computer systems, it is known that radiation can cause transient faults that lead to catastrophic system failure. Here, the destructive energy of ionizing radiation in the form of waves or particles is the direct cause of atomic lattice displacement and ionization damage, which are the basic mechanisms of radiation damage. In a major nuclear accident at a nuclear power plant, the destructive energy includes both the lethal effects to the system operators and the large release of radioactivity to the system environment. In the case of a terrorist attack, the destructive energy hitting a civilian target depends on the means and effectiveness of the attack.

1.1.4 Nature of resilience

In order to reveal the nature of resilience, the following possible scenarios of a dam–reservoir system after being hit by the destructive energy of a large earthquake are considered:

1. A resilient system: Despite a large earthquake, the dam sustains no serious cracking damage that could affect the normal functioning of the dam–reservoir system. The destructive energy of the earthquake is completely absorbed by the kinematic energy of the dam during seismic motions, and thus, no harmful energy is released into the system environment.

2. A nonresilient system: As a result of a large earthquake, the dam sustains severe cracking damage that could affect the normal functioning of the dam–reservoir system, such as flood control due to damage to the spillway, thus endangering the downstream areas. In other words, a certain amount of harmful energy is released into the system environment, in the form of the fracture energy sustained by the dam.

3. A failed system: As a result of a large earthquake, the dam fails catastrophically due to the occurrence of penetrating cracks, flooding the downstream areas, and causing grave social, environmental, and economic consequences. In this case, an enormous amount of destructive energy is released into the system environment.

As seen, a resilient system is capable of absorbing the destructive energy of change and disturbance, protecting the system environment against harmful effects from these events. A nonresilient system can only partially absorb the destructive energy and releases the remaining part, producing some harmful effects on the system environment. A failed system suffers a system failure during the event, releasing an enormous amount of destructive energy into the system environment. Hence, it may be possible to assess the resilience of a given system by evaluating the amount of harmful energy released into the system environment. This raises the fundamental question in resilience research: What is the nature of resilience?

A simple answer is that the nature of resilience is about protecting the system environment against harmful effects of change and disturbance, by developing resilient systems that can completely absorb the destructive energy of these adverse events. As the global ecological system is the extended system environment for all systems on earth, by minimizing the impact of change and disturbance on the system environment, it is hoped that the resilience approach can ultimately help mankind achieve harmony with nature again through sustainable development.

Obviously, the three-scenario resilience analyses presented earlier for the dam–reservoir system can be modified for assessing the resilience of other types of system, such as the aforementioned sewer system in a metropolitan city, the computer chip embedded in a pacemaker implanted in a patient with heart disease or a computer system in a passenger airplane, and the system of a nuclear power plant. Needless to say, each system has its unique measure, scale, and type of disturbance for assessing its system performance, depending on the functions and characteristics of the system. But for resilient systems, irrespective of the field of study or scientific discipline, they all possess the capability of completely absorbing the destructive energy of change and disturbance and minimizing the impact of these adverse events on their system environments.

1.1.5 Quantification of resilience

Based on the earlier discussion, by taking the ratio of the energy absorbed by the system over the destructive energy of change and disturbance, a uniform resilience metric for various systems has emerged, providing a generic quantitative approach for resilience that could be applicable across various disciplines in a consistent manner. For a resilient system the ratio is one; for a nonresilient or less resilient system the ratio is less than one; and for a failed system the ratio is zero. For most real-world systems, this ratio is probably less than one but larger than zero. For these systems, the higher the ratio, the more resilient the system becomes.

Note that the energy-based resilience metric is effectively equivalent to the performance-based metric, if resilience is defined as the ratio of recovery to loss (Henry and Ramirez-Marquez, 2012). This is because the loss of functionality in a system due to change and disturbance is the work done by the destructive energy of these events, and the recovery of functionality is the work performed by the system, i.e., the energy absorbed by the system. These concepts are best explained by using the well-known resilience triangle that represents the loss of functionality from damage and disruption, as well as the pattern of restoration and recovery over time (Tierney and Bruneau, 2007). Details of these important works will be reviewed in Chapter 3, Resilience assessment methodology and fundamentals of graph theory.

Which of the two resilience metrics, i.e., the performance-based metric and the energy-based metric, should be employed for studying the resilience of a given system? The answer depends on the system itself. When the functionality of that system can be readily quantified, the performance-based metric may be easy to use. However, when it is difficult to quantify functionality, then the energy-based metric should be used.

1.2 Lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

ent Albert Einstein Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1979

1.2.1 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident

On March, 11, 2011, an earthquake measuring nine on the Richter scale struck near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. The Great East Japan Earthquake was caused by multisegment failures of the Earth’s crust over wide areas in the nearby Japan Trench. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and triggered powerful tsunami waves which struck a long area of the coast, including the north-eastern coast, where several waves reached heights of more than 10 m. The earthquake and tsunami caused great loss of life and widespread devastation: more than 15,000 people were killed, over 6000 were injured, and around 2500 people were still reported missing 4 years after the event (IAEA, 2015). Considerable damage was caused to buildings and infrastructure, particularly along Japan’s north-eastern coast.

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the earthquake damaged the electric lines supplying power to the site, and the subsequent tsunami caused substantial damage to the operational and safety infrastructure on the site. All on-site and off-site power was completely lost, but most importantly, flooding of the electric equipment room cut the supply of electricity to components and devices. This resulted in the failure of the cooling systems in the three operating reactor units as well as the spent fuel pools.

Despite the efforts of the reactor operators to maintain control, the reactor cores in Units 1, 2, and 3 overheated, the nuclear fuel melted, and the three containment vessels were breached. Hydrogen was released from the reactor pressure vessels, leading to explosions inside the reactor buildings in Units 1, 3, and 4 that damaged structures and equipment and injured personnel. Radionuclides were released into the atmosphere and then deposited onto the land and ocean. There were also direct releases into the sea. People within a radius of 20 km of the site and in other designated areas were evacuated, and those within a radius of 20–30 km were instructed to take shelter before later being advised to voluntarily evacuate. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which was rated Level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) by the Japanese government’s nuclear safety agency, was the worst accident at a nuclear power plant since the first Level-7 major disaster at Chernobyl in 1986.

1.2.2 Root cause analysis

The following discussion on the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is based on the Committee Investigation Report of the Fukushima nuclear accident published by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ, 2016).

Direct factors

The cause-and-effect relationship between the catastrophic accident at the power plant and the suffering of local residents is as follows. The ground motion and tsunami caused by the earthquake caused many pieces of plant equipment to fail and damaged the nuclear reactors so severely that large quantities of radioactive materials in the reactors were released into the environment. The loss of most of the power sources at the plant exacerbated the situation. There were three factors that directly caused the accident and the suffering of local residents:

• inadequate preparations for tsunami,

• inadequate preparations for severe accidents, and

• inadequate emergency response measures, post-accident actions, and mitigation and recovery measures.

Although two new pieces of knowledge about tsunami had been acquired before the Great East Japan Earthquake, no action was taken. One finding concerned the tsunami caused by the Jogan Earthquake of 869 off the Sanriku coast mentioned in historical documents. Tsunami deposits corresponding to this tsunami were found mainly in Miyagi Prefecture, and academic papers on source models of that tsunami had been published. The second finding was about the possibility of a tsunami earthquake along the oceanic trench off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, which had been pointed out by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In 2008, TEPCO conducted simulations on each of these tsunamis and calculated that the maximum wave heights at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could reach 9.2 and 15.7 m, respectively. These wave heights were far greater than TEPCO’s previous estimate of 5.7 m. TEPCO, however, postponed taking actual action against these predicted tsunamis partly because they did not believe that those tsunami source theories represented a unified view of seismologists and partly because they considered that the probability of such a tsunami was not great enough to require additional preparations. If, however, a probabilistic approach is to be taken on this issue, the focus should be on the so-called cliff edge effect, where a tsunami event exceeding the design wave height can sharply increase the probability of reactor core damage.

A severe accident refers to one that is more severe than the design basis accident. Since the design basis accident is based on certain assumptions, the possibility of a larger accident is not zero. To prevent reactor core damage and containment vessel damage in the event of a severe accident, a set of accident management (AM) measures had been devised. As part of nuclear power operators’ voluntary efforts, AM measures had been introduced at all nuclear power plants in Japan by 2002, but they were rarely reviewed thereafter. In particular, no measures were taken to prevent and mitigate severe accidents due to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

In the event of a nuclear accident, it is necessary to evacuate local residents urgently if a large amount of radioactive material has been released into the environment. There was an emergency response support facility (off-site center) located about 5 km from the power plant, but it failed to function as an on-site emergency response headquarter because the earthquake cut almost all means of communication. Instructions about using iodine tablets did not reach everyone. These failures associated with the evacuation of local residents were attributable to poor preparation for emergencies. The delay in decontamination was also due to a failure to anticipate such emergencies.

Background factors

This section analyses background factors that contributed to the direct causes of the accident, focusing on organizational background factors involving experts, the power plant operator, and the regulatory authority. Since the accident is investigated from the viewpoint of the AESJ as a group of experts, an expert-related background factor is at the top of the list of background factors.

1. Lack of awareness among experts about their roles

Confined within their narrow specialities, experts failed to notice inadequacies in system safety measures. Tsunamis were discussed mainly by tsunami experts, and the associated risks for a nuclear power plant were not fully discussed. Many nuclear safety experts had specialized knowledge about plants but lacked an understanding of the natural disaster risks involved.

2. Lack of safety awareness and safety efforts by the plant operator

TEPCO, as the plant operator, did not face up to the risks revealed by the newly gained knowledge about tsunami and severe accidents. They deserve criticism for postponing the necessary safety measures. When making management decisions they did not take accident risks seriously.

3. Lack of safety awareness by the regulatory authority

The regulatory authority, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), had received information about anticipated tsunami risks from TEPCO, but did not instruct TEPCO to take safety measures. As the regulatory authority responsible for safety regulation, NISA was not fully aware of its responsibilities.

4. Lack of a humble attitude to learn from international and collaborative efforts

There was a lack of willingness to learn from good practices in other countries and international efforts of the IAEA and other international organizations. For example, when the magnitude 9.1 Indian Ocean earthquake occurred in 2004, a nuclear power plant on the coast on the other side of the Indian Ocean was partially flooded by the resulting huge tsunami. This earthquake and tsunami, however, did not lead to any effort in Japan to predict earthquakes and tsunamis of similar magnitudes occurring around Japan and to strengthen preparations for such events.

5. Lack of personnel and organizational management infrastructure focused on safety

A nuclear power plant is a large-scale complex system, not merely as an engineering system, but also because it is closely tied to society and the economy. For example, safety measures will not work simply by installing safety devices. Whether they are effective or not depends greatly on personnel management and activities such as maintenance and emergency response. Another factor common to all of the background factors described thus far is that, at the time of the accident, there were neither personnel nor organizational management infrastructure ready to function in an integrated and systematic manner to ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant as a large-scale complex system.

1.2.3 Lessons learned

Based on the nature of resilience discussed previously, resilient systems are able to absorb the destructive energy of change and disturbance and protect their system environments against harmful effects related to these events. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 2015), The Fukushima Daiichi Accident, contains recommendations for improving nuclear safety in nuclear plant operation, which focus on enhancing the resilience of these complex sociotechnical systems amid changing conditions and preparing for the unexpected. The recommendations cover the following six issues:

• vulnerability of the plant to external events,

• application of the defense-in-depth concept,

• assessment of the failure to fulfill fundamental safety functions,

• assessment of beyond design basis accidents and AM,

• assessment of regulatory effectiveness, and

• assessment of human and organizational factors.

Excerpts are given below:

The assessment of natural hazards needs to be sufficiently conservative.

The safety of nuclear power plants needs to be reevaluated on a periodic basis to consider advances in knowledge, and necessary corrective actions or compensatory measures need to be implemented promptly.

Operating experience programs need to include experience from both national and international sources.

The defense-in-depth concept remains valid, but implementation of the concept needs to be strengthened at all levels by adequate independence, redundancy, diversity, and protection against internal and external hazards. There is a need to focus not only on accident prevention, but also on improving mitigation measures.

Instrumentation and control systems that are necessary during beyond design basis accidents need to remain operable in order to monitor essential plant safety parameters and to facilitate plant operations.

In order to ensure effective regulatory oversight of the safety of nuclear installations, it is essential that the regulatory body is independent and possesses legal authority, technical competence, and a strong safety culture.

Obviously, these corrective measures directly address the root causes of the accident discussed earlier, and it seems that, the IAEA recommendations can be summarized by the four essential capabilities proposed for building resilient sociotechnical systems (Hollnagel, et al., 2011): the ability to respond to events, to monitor ongoing developments, to anticipate future threats and opportunities, and to learn from past failures and successes alike. The resilience approach in sociotechnical systems will be reviewed in Chapter 2, Reviews of resilience theories and mathematical generalization.

Based on his study of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, Omoto (2013) presented the following universal lessons to be learned from the accident:

1. Resilience: the need to enhance organizational capabilities to respond, monitor, anticipate, and learn in changing conditions, especially to prepare for the unexpected. This includes increasing distance to cliff edge by knowing where it exists and how to increase the safety margin.

2. Responsibility: the operator is primarily responsible for safety (responsible use), and the government is responsible for protecting public health and the environment. For both, their right decisions are supported by competence, knowledge, and an understanding of the technology, as well as humble attitudes toward the limitations of what we know and what we can learn from others.

3. Social licence to operate: the need to avoid, as much as possible regardless of its probability of occurrence, the reasonably anticipated environmental impact (such as land contamination), as well as to build public confidence/trust and a renewed liability scheme.

It should be pointed out that Kitamura offered similar lessons in his analysis of the accident using resilience concepts (Kitamura, 2014).

As observed by Acton and Hibbs (2012), the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident does not reveal a previously unknown fatal flaw associated with nuclear power. Perhaps what it actually reveals is Einstein’s fear about our thinking in his warning of the danger facing mankind in the nuclear age, which had been largely shaped in the preatomic age and thus has fatal limitations to fully comprehend the catastrophic consequences associated with the unleashed power of the atom in this fast-changing world. Sadly, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident was the second full-scale manifestation of Einstein’s fear after the Chernobyl disaster.

Worrisome as the future outlook is, there is hope. With the emergence of resilience science, a new way of thinking inferred from Einstein’s warning is emerging and growing strong, and there is hope that the human race will finally mature in time to avert catastrophe beyond conception.

1.3 Building structural resilience by sewer reconstruction in Tokyo

1.3.1 Sewer aging and reconstruction of sewer system

The construction of sewer systems in Tokyo dates back to the Meiji Era (1868–1912). By the end of 1994, after more than a century, sewer coverage in the ward area of Tokyo reached almost 100%. The total length of sewers crisscrossing beneath the metropolitan city is about 16,000 km, which is twice the distance from Tokyo to Sydney. In addition, there are 20 water reclamation centers and 86 pump stations. In operating a large and complex network of facilities year round to support the urban activities in Tokyo and the lives of 13.6 million Tokyoites, the city’s sewer systems discharge 5.56 million m³ of sewage every day, enough to fill the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium 4.5 times.

As a result of the lengthy period of sewer construction in Tokyo, some early-built sewer pipelines are approaching or have exceeded their design service life of 50 years, well before the city’s goal of complete sewer coverage is reached. After decades of service under heavy traffic loads and in highly corrosive sewage environments, sewer aging has progressed and led to road cave-in accidents and other problems such as clogged drains, leaks, and infiltration. Due to increases in storm water runoff as a result of urbanization and frequent local heavy rains, the discharge capacity of existing sewer pipes is too small to prevent inundation. Furthermore, some of the older sewers do not meet earthquake resistance requirements.

For these reasons, reconstruction projects for solving discharge capacity problems and enhancing earthquake resistance have been implemented since 1995 under the city’s Master Plan for Second-Generation Sewer Systems, alongside maintenance and renovation efforts. The scope of reconstruction includes aging sewer pipelines and manholes, aging water reclamation centers and pump stations, and the plan also calls for advanced treatment and the improvement of combined sewer systems. In order to help build a zero-waste society, the measures implemented under the plan have included recycling-related projects for using valuable sewage resources such as treated water, sludge, and sewage heat, and the proper and efficient maintenance of sewer facilities to prolong their useful service life.

So far, sewers covering about 6600 ha, or 40% of the combined area of the four urban-center drainage districts in Tokyo, have been reconstructed. However, the remaining task of reconstruction is still large, especially considering the fact that about 1800 km of sewers have exceeded the statutory service life and this figure will increase to 8900 km in the coming 20 years.

1.3.2 A semicomposite pipe concept in renovation design of aging sewers

In Japan, the first aging sewer pipe renovated as a composite pipe was produced in 1987 by using the Sewerage Pipe Renewal (SPR) Method, and its design and construction work was based on the Design and Construction Guidelines for Sewer Pipe Rehabilitation stipulated by the Japan Sewage Works Association (JSWA, 2011).

In this provisional code, renovation methods are classified into two categories: the so-called composite pipe method and the independent (or stand-alone) pipe method. The concept of the composite pipe method is to construct a composite structure by rigidly attaching an inner lining, i.e., a renovation layer, to the existing pipe, and the renovated sewer is expected to carry the external loads using the combined resistance of the two structural components. (Note the fundamental difference between such a composite pipe and an FRP composite pipe, which refers to a pipe made of composite fiber-reinforced polymer materials and used for the transportation of oil, gas, and liquid commodities.) On the other hand, in the independent pipe method a new pipe is constructed inside the existing one, and the new pipe is designed to resist external forces on its own without relying on the existing pipe.

Mainly because of its low construction cost, short construction period and low environmental impacts, the Bureau of Sewerage of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) has actively promoted the composite pipe method in reconstructing its aging sewer systems since the late 1980s. As a result, except when sewer replacement by open-cut construction is absolutely necessary, renovations of man-entry sewers with a wide range of cross-sectional shapes have been carried out using several certified composite pipe construction techniques. The independent pipe method is sometimes adopted to renovate nonman-entry sewers with circular cross sections in the Tokyo area, but it is used much less frequently than the composite pipe method.

In the case of the SPR method for man-entry sewers, during renovation construction a liner-formation machine moves along the existing sewer with its prefabricated framework conforming to the cross-sectional shape of the sewer, creating a liner pipe along the length of the existing sewer. The liner is formed by helically winding a continuous polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ribbed profile with interlocking edges. The annular space behind the liner is then filled with cementitious grout under pressure to form a highly integrated structure with the PVC liner bound to the existing sewer by grout after it has hardened naturally. For medium- to large-size man-entry sewers, the ribs of the profile are reinforced with steel to enhance the hoop strength and stiffness of the liner, and the structural strength of the renovated sewer is largely determined by the thickness and material characteristics of the renovation layer. Note that construction processes using similar renovation techniques may differ in detail from manufacturer to