Municipal Water & Wastewater Infrastructure

I recently presented an AMPP webcast on How Coating Selection Impacts Lifecycle Cost of Water and Wastewater Infrastructure. We had a great turnout and more questions than we had time to cover live, so as promised, I wanted to follow up here with answers to some of the questions we didn't get to during the session.

A. Question: From your perspective, how can owners and engineers correlate performance with expected service life when selecting between epoxy, polyurethane, and polyurea systems?

Response: I'd start with AMPP's Expected Service Life of Coatings and Cost Considerations for Practical Maintenance Work paper because it provides a useful baseline for comparing systems across atmospheric and immersion service, using "practical maintenance time"-the point where roughly 5–10% coating breakdown and active rusting are present-as a consistent benchmark for expected performance. From there, I wouldn't correlate service life strictly to whether a system is an epoxy, polyurethane, or polyurea, because performance can vary significantly within each generic chemistry. Instead, evaluate measurable properties such as adhesion, permeability and water absorption, abrasion resistance, flexibility, cathodic disbondment, chemical resistance, and long-term barrier performance, and then correlate that laboratory data-particularly tools like EIS and permeation testing-with documented case histories and field performance in comparable environments. I'd lean on both rather than either alone: lab testing demonstrates suitability for the service environment, while case histories demonstrate the track record. Once you establish a reasonable expected service life for each option, you can use net present value or equivalent annual cost to determine which system actually provides the lowest lifecycle cost, even if it carries a higher initial price.