Pipeline Segment-Specific External Corrosion Rate Estimation to Improve Reassessment Interval Accuracy

Overview

Main Objective

The primary objective is to provide a simple tool to optimize determination of integrity reassessment intervals by more accurately predicting external corrosion rates that are 1) representative of a specific pipeline segment, 2) include distribution of corrosion rates as a function of location and time (allowing prediction of time-to-first-failure). Secondary objectives include 1) putting recently reported NIST data into a context that can be used by pipeline operators and 2) including the ability to allow reduction of predicted corrosion rate based on close-interval-survey and/or other data.

Public Abstract

External corrosion growth estimations are required for determining integrity reassessment intervals. Commonly utilized methods are presently limited because they a) do not adequately reflect local conditions of a specific pipeline segment, b) do not reflect corrosion rate distributions (arising from both the stochastic nature of corrosion and non-uniform soil conditions along a pipeline length), and/or c) do not consider the unsteady rate of corrosion over long periods.

The project objective is to provide a simple tool to optimize integrity reassessment intervals by more accurately predicting external corrosion rates that are 1) representative of a specific pipeline segment and 2) include distribution of corrosion rates (allowing prediction of time-to-first-failure).

Relevant Files & Links