Researchers look at the methodologies currently used by industry and academics to predict pipeline failure and their limitations. Researchers found that the existing academic literature and industry practices around pipeline failures need to further evolve around available maintenance data.

Unfortunately, integrity and health are ongoing and serious problems for North America’s pipeline infrastructure. According to the US Department of Transportation (DOT), there have been more than 10,000 pipeline failures in that country alone since 2002. Complicating safety measures are the cost and intensity of labour required to monitor the health of the thousands of kilometres of pipelines that criss-cross Canada and the United States.

In a recent paper in the Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice, researchers at Concordia and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University look at the methodologies currently used by industry and academics to predict pipeline failure — and their limitations.

«In many of the existing codes and practices, the focus is on the consequences of what happens when something goes wrong,» says Fuzhan Nasiri, associate professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science.

«Whenever there is a failure, investigators look at the pipeline’s design criteria. But they often ignore the operational aspects and how pipelines can be maintained in order to minimize risks.»

Nasiri, who runs the Sustainable Energy and Infrastructure Systems Engineering Lab, co-authored the paper with his PhD student Kimiya Zakikhani and Hong Kong Polytechnic professor Tarek Zayed.

Story Source: Materials provided by Concordia University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.