• PRCI PR-244-9519
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PRCI PR-244-9519

  • Reliability Based Planning of Inspection & Maintenance
  • Report / Survey by Pipeline Research Council International, 01/01/1997
  • Publisher: PRCI

$198.00$395.00


L51765e

Centre for Engineering Research, Inc.

Need: The rising societal demand for minimization and control of technological risk has resulted in increased pressure on pipeline operators to demonstrate that their systems do not pose excessive risks to the public or the environment. On the other hand, the current competitive economic climate dictates that they must do so at the lowest possible cost. This operating environment creates an incentive for pipeline companies to utilize risk-based planning methods, which are known to provide the most cost effective solutions to risk minimization and the documentation needed to demonstrate prudent risk management to regulators and the public.

Benefit: This report describes the results of a research project on reliability-based optimization of pipeline integrity maintenance activities. The objective was to develop models to quantify the effect of different maintenance activities on the structural reliability of pipelines, and to demonstrate how these models can be used in a relaibility-based framework to develop optimal integrity maintenance plans. The approaches developed can be used to prioritize pipeline segments for maintenance and to select the optimal combination of activites for high priority segments. The maintenance decisions considered include the mainteance method, the time interval between events, and the repair criteria for damage detected by inspection. This report also documents the development of a methodology to quantify the effect of maintenance activities on the structural reliability of pipeline systems.

Result: The findings of the project indicate that it is feasible to continue the development of reliability based approaches for failure causes that were not explicitly considered in this project. These include dent/gouge defects, manufacturing cracks and ground movements. In addition, a separate model is needed for applying reliability-based planning to hydro test planning (i.e., test pressure and frequency). Hydro testing must be treated separately because, unlike other maintenance actions, it addresses a number of failure causes at the same time. Future work should also be directed toward facilitating the use of reliability-based methods by pipeline engineers. This can be achieved by developing user friendly software tools or developing simplified maintenance planning criteria that are calibrated to achieve a certain level of reliability. Development of more accurate failure conditions, collection of pipe inspection data and development of models to predict defect characteristics from pipeline attributes would enhance the accuracy of reliabilitybased models in general.

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