In 1992, the American Water Works Association (AWWA) introduced a new standard for the design of prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP) designated as ANSI/AWWA C304. The ANSI/AWWA C304 Standard introduced a new design philosophy for PCCP based on the concept of evaluating and satisfying certain serviceability, elastic and strength limit-states criteria using various combinations of factored and unfactored design loads and internal pressures. When the C304 Standard was first introduced in 1992, many potential users voiced concerns related to the complexity of the design provisions contained therein that continue to date. Upon performing a detailed review of the C304 Standard, it is apparent to the authors that some of the provisions currently incorporated in the document can be simplified without any significant corresponding consequences relative to the final overall design solution. This paper addresses some of these overly-complex design provisions and provides alternate or simplified provisions for a few of them. In the near future, the authors anticipate performing a more comprehensive evaluation and preparing additional supplementary publications with the intention of providing further justification for simplifying future versions of the ANSI/AWWA C304 Standard.
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