Reliability Evaluation of Corroding Pipelines Considering Multiple Failure Modes and Time-Dependent Internal Pressure
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 17, Issue 4
Abstract
A methodology is developed to evaluate the annual failure probabilities of a pressurized pipeline at an active metal-loss corrosion defect. The methodology takes into account three different failure modes at the defect (i.e., small leak, large leak, and rupture) and the time dependency of the pipe’s internal pressure by modeling the pressure as a simple stochastic process consisting of a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, each occupying a period of one year. The impact of periodic maintenance actions on the failure probabilities is incorporated in the methodology. Two numerical examples are used to illustrate the methodology. The sensitivity of the calculated failure probabilities with respect to the time dependency of the internal pressure is also investigated.
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Acknowledgments
The financial support provided by the Natural Science and Engineering Council (NSERC) of Canada under Grant No. NSERC376295-2009 and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Western Ontario is gratefully acknowledged. The constructive comments provided by two anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated. The assistance of Mr. Shenwei Zhang in carrying out the FORM analysis for the first example is acknowledged.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 17 • Issue 4 • December 2011
Pages: 216 - 224
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 26, 2010
Accepted: May 6, 2011
Published online: May 7, 2011
Published in print: Dec 1, 2011
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