Reliability-based Assessment of Oil and Gas Pipelines Buried across Geohazard Areas

Buried pipelines are inevitably constructed in geohazard areas associated with the possible development of permanent ground displacements, which induces considerably high strains thus leads to failure on pipeline structures. This study aims to establish an accurate and efficient tool for the safety evaluation of pipes bearing ground movements from the perspective of reliability, which purpose to be applied to the pipeline industry in practice. A foremost model for response prediction of pipes under geohazard-induced loads is firstly established based on the finite difference method where the nonlinearities arising from the pipe material, the pipe-soil interaction, and the geometry of the pipe are considered. This developed model is incorporated into the reliability calculation in which a highly efficient scheme is developed based on the computational optimization. The above works are finally industrialized to an Application, which is suitable for the preliminary design and safety prescreening of pipes buried across geohazard zones.

Faculty Supervisor:

Samer Adeeb

Student:

Partner:

Delft University of Technology

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Alberta

Program: