Leakage in Ethylene Pipelines

Ethylene is transported in pipelines as a supercritical fluid. If a pipeline fails due to a small corrosion hole or mechanical damage, very low temperatures (of order –104°C) will be reached at some stage, as the ethylene depressurizes to atmospheric pressure. If these low temperatures are reached as the ethylene passes through the pipeline wall, the concern is that carbon steel will lose its ductile strength and a small hole will propagate into a larger, possibly full-bore, rupture. The objective of this study is to use the computer program BLOWDOWN to simulate the release of ethylene through a small hole and to determine the predicted wall temperatures in the region of the hole.