Optimal inspection and maintenance plans for corroded pipelines

Abstract

Pipeline corrosion is a serious problem in the oil industry at present. It can lead to small leakage, burst and unstable fracture of pipeline. Therefore, it is necessary to use inspection and maintenance methods to prevent pipeline failure. In this context, this study discusses the optimal inspection and maintenance planning of corroded pipelines under external metal loss corrosion. Firstly, the limit state functions of different failure modes are established, and the corresponding failure probability is obtained by Monte Carlo simulation. The service age reduction factor is introduced to represent the maintenance effect of imperfect maintenance, and it is used to update the failure rate and failure probability. Genetic algorithm is applied to optimize the inspection plan. Finally, an example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.