STRUCTURAL RISK MANAGEMENT OF ONSHORE PIPELINES: CONTRIBUTION TO THE BRAZILIAN NATIONAL PRACTICE

• Grant number: 12/11587-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Civil Engineering - Structural Engineering
• Principal Investigator: André Teófilo Beck
• Grantee: Felipe Alexander Vargas Bazán
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

International databases show that mechanical damage due to third party interference and corrosion are two of the major causes of failures in onshore pipelines. Thus, risk management in pipeline operations requires tools to model and predict occurrence of spill events due to these two failure modes. On the other hand, risk-based structural optimization is a formulation which includes the (expected) cost of failure in the economic balance, allowing one to find the optimum tradeoff point between the competing goals of economy and safety. The main objective of the present post-doctoral project is the development of tools to enable an optimized management of the structural risk of onshore pipelines, under the two above failure modes, taking explicitly into account the consequences of failure and incorporating uncertainty models for inspection and maintenance. In Brazil, pipeline operation is still done empirically, and the time between periodic inspections, for instance, is decided based on past experience. The main contribution intended with this research project is to address the risk management of pipelines in a more rational and direct manner, by means of the risk optimization formulation. The project involves the use of computational resources. This proposal is a result of experience gained in a R&D project, funded by PETROBRAS. There is great expectation of incorporating the results of this project in practices of PETROBRAS and Transpetro.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

VARGAS BAZAN, FELIPE ALEXANDER; BECK, ANDRE TEOFILO. Stochastic process corrosion growth models for pipeline reliability. Corrosion Science, v. 74, p. 50-58, SEP 2013. (12/11587-0)

VARGAS BAZAN, FELIPE ALEXANDER; BECK, ANDRE TEOFILO. Optimal design of buried pipelines considering failure by mechanical damage. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, v. 12, n. 11, p. 1477-1486, 2016. (12/11587-0)