Increasing Confidence in Remaining Useful Life Estimation for Inspected Pipelines

Pipeline inspection data can be used to estimate a pipeline’s remaining useful life (RUL) for more improved long-term asset management strategies. With a high-confidence RUL estimation, asset deterioration projections can match the pipeline condition over time. However, RUL estimates based on first-time inspection data carry a high level of uncertainty. This is because an inspection offers a snapshot understanding of the pipeline’s condition at the time of inspection. Degradation patterns from a pipeline’s installation up to the first condition assessment can be uncertain as the degradation initiation time is difficult to pinpoint or unknown, affecting the estimated degradation rate. The uncertainty of RUL estimates decreases with multiple pipeline inspections over regular intervals. Degradation is tracked over shorter time periods enabling a better estimate of the degradation rate. As such, the predicted and actual conditions of the pipe are more closely aligned. This provides a higher level of confidence for decision-makers and stakeholders who rely on the predicted estimates of pipeline deterioration for making informed capital project planning decisions. This paper presents a case study showing how repeated pipeline inspection data can improve a predictive model—decreasing the uncertainty of the predicted deterioration rate and improving the accuracy of the RUL forecasts.