Abstract
A General Pipe Break Prediction Model that incorporates linear and exponential models in its form is developed. The model is capable of fitting pipe break trends that have linear, exponential or in between of linear and exponential trend by using a weighting factor. The weighting factor is adjusted to obtain a best model that minimizes the sum of squared errors of the model. The model essentially plots a best curve (or a line) passing through "cumulative number of pipe breaks" versus "break times since installation of a pipe" data points. Therefore, it prevents over-predicting future number of pipe breaks compared to the conventional exponential model. The optimal replacement time equation is derived by using the Threshold Break Rate equation by Loganathan et al. (2002).