Probabilistic Approach for Reliability Estimation of Corroded Pipelines

Abstract

Pipelines widely used for the transportation of varying fluids from one place to another should be maintained in good condition to avoid, if possible, the occurrence of corrosion in pipelines to keep its reliability in terms of fracture and damage. The reliability of buried pipelines with corrosion defects is estimated using the failure probability. The FORM (first order reliability method) is utilized to estimate the failure probability of buried pipeline with various formulas for external stress in pipe and three different corrosion models. In this paper, it is recognized that the failure probability increases not only with increasing exposure time, operating pressure and diameter of pipe but also with decreasing wall thickness and yield stress of pipe material in three different corrosion models. And the effects of the scattering of random variables regarding reliability of pipelines on failure probability are investigated, systematically. Furthermore, the target safety level is used to determine the level of safe of corroded pipeline and the effects of varying boundary conditions on target safety level are also estimated.