AWWA JAW59701

As the use of chloramination becomes more widely practiced, some utility managers may question whether long-term exposure to chloramines will compromise the functioning and/or shorten the life of their rubber gasketed ductile-iron pipe joints. The paper discusses why special elastomers for ductile-iron pipe joints are not required in water systems using chloramination for disinfection. Specifically, the effect of chloramines on nitriles, styrene butadiene, neoprenes, ethylene-propylene, and fluorocarbons is examined. The author concludes that the effect of chloramine on elastomers is application-specific, but that chloramination will not compromise the life of elastomer gaskets supplied with push-on and mechanical joint ductile-iron pipe. Includes 11 references, tables, figures.