Mrs Jeya Rajalingam, Principal Engineer at Sydney Water, has been awarded a Lawrence Choy Memorial Fellowship funded by TRILITY to engage with the UK water industry from April to June 2014. During her time in the United Kingdom, Jeya will work with water utilities including Scottish Water, Northumbrian Water, United Utilities, Severn Trent Water, Yorkshire Water, Thames Water and South West Water. UK Water Industry Research (UK WIR) will coordinate her activities and schedule. She will share her expertise and experiences in condition assessment and pipe failure prediction to the benefit of the UK water industry, Sydney Water and the other partners in the Advanced Condition Assessment and Pipe Failure Prediction Project.

Jeya has over 30 years’ experience in the UK, Australia and Sri Lanka and has specialised in management of water supply systems. For the last nine years she has been in charge of the condition assessment of pressurised water pipelines and has contributed to the development of Sydney Water’s risk assessment based strategy for renewals and methodologies to identify pipes needing intervention. She is familiar with and has trialled most of the world’s current technologies and processes to carry out condition assessment and understands their benefits and limitations. She has also completed case studies on main breaks by analysing the field, operational data and pipe inspection data to determine corrosion potential and to recommend future action required for those pipes. Her knowledge has contributed to the design of research programs to improve the statistical level of confidence generated by these technologies and to determine pipe condition “in-between” inspection points.

On behalf of the partners, Project Management would like to congratulate Jeya on her award and wish her well.