PR676-233801-R01 The State of the Art Pipeline Risk Assessment for Crack Management

Pipeline Research Council International Inc. (PRCI)’s Crack Management SRP has identified that circumferential cracking is a challenge for pipeline operating companies. The objective of this work was to create a framework to identify, assess and mitigate the risk due to circumferential cracking threats. Susceptibility to failure from circumferential cracking is linked to (1) circumfer-ential cracks subject to increasing axial or bending strains, or (2) growth in circumferential cracks at locations of residual strain. This project focusses on the first.

No single inline inspection (ILI) technology is capable of identifying circumferential cracks co-located within areas of increasing axial and bending strain. While bending strains are reliably de-tected with inertial mapping in-line inspection (ILI/IMU), identifying increasing strain due to sub-sidence or ground movement geotechnical requires separate expertise. Combining these into a framework to estimate the risk of a pipeline failure from circumferential cracks is the focus of this project.

This work summarizes the state-of-the art of pipeline risk assessment, which was the starting point for the development of circumferential crack management framework. The framework is compat-ible with the state-of-the-art risk methods used for other threats, it is intended to integrate into operators’ integrity management planning, and it addresses the latest regulations and best practices adhered to by the industry.