Synthetic Evaluation of Natural Gas Pipeline Operation Schemes Based on the Multi-level Grey Cluster Decision Method

Abstract

In this paper, a multi-level grey cluster decision method is proposed for the synthetic evaluation of operation schemes of natural gas pipelines with inexact data and insufficient information. A four-level index system is built as the synthetic evaluation criterion, aiming in balancing transmission volume, economic profit, and safety of the pipeline. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is applied to calculate the weights of indexes. In order to assess the pipeline’s operation schemes with multi-level index, the principle of AHP method and the conventional grey cluster decision method are incorporated into a new multi-level grey evaluation method. The essential procedures of the method are illustrated in details, including computations of the grey class, whitenization weight function, decision coefficient matrix, weighted normalized decision coefficient matrix and synthetic evaluation score. Finally, this method is applied to seven operation schemes of Se–Ning–Lan gas pipeline in China. The results demonstrate that synthetic prior order of each scheme is not dependent on any one evaluation index, but on the comprehensive performance of the transmission volume, economic profit and pipeline safety. The application proves that the pipeline’s operation schemes can be reasonably evaluated even if insufficient data are used. The achievement of this paper provides a new analytical method as well as a powerful tool for the synthetic evaluation of operation schemes for natural gas pipelines.