Development of an Integrity Evaluation Program for Corroded City Gas Pipelines

Pipelines have the highest capacity and are the safest and the least environmentally disruptive means for transmitting gas or oil. Recently, failures due to corrosion defects have become a major concern in maintaining pipeline integrity. A number of solutions have been developed for the assessment of remaining strength of corroded pipelines. In this paper, a Fitness-For-Purpose(FFP) type limit load solution for corroded city gas pipelines is proposed. For this purpose, a series of burst tests with various types of machined defects were performed. Finite element simulations were carried out to derive an appropriate failure criterion. Based on such solution along with existing solutions, an integrity evaluation program for corroded city gas pipeline, COPAP-CITY, has been developed.