Fuzzy analyses of adverse consequences resulted from offshore pipeline failure

Abstract

Risk assessment of offshore gas pipelines is a challenging task due to uncertain and vague data on failure mechanisms and the effects of events. The goal of this paper is to develop a systematic approach to overcome this uncertainty. The likelihood of a failure event is obtained via fault tree analysis, and the associated failure consequences are obtained via event tree analysis. To cope with uncertainties, the fuzzy set theory has been combined with the fault tree analysis and event tree analysis. Financial consequences of offshore pipeline failure are estimated and financial consequences are divided into economic losses, environmental damage, and human health issue. To assess the feasibility of this method, an example of its application in an offshore pipeline containing sour gas is presented. Flash fire, pool fire, and environmental damage are the most known consequences associated with offshore pipeline failure. Therefore, application of fuzzy set theory in the likelihood assessment of pipeline failure and severity of the resulting consequence can be used to incorporate uncertain and imprecise data in this field.