PROBABILISTIC ASSESSMENT OF PIPELINE - FAULT CROSSING

Abstract

Buried steel pipelines transporting oil and oil products play a vital role in the en- ergy supply chain. Pipelines extend to long distances and thus intercepting tectonic faults, when a seismic area is crossed, is often inevitable and may heavily threat the pipeline integri- ty. Earthquakes and the associated fault displacements are naturally random events and therefore the imposed large ground displacements on the pipeline have to be considered through a probabilistic perspective. In the present study, a comprehensive seismic risk analy- sis of buried pipeline - fault crossing is presented, consisting of two steps. The first step is the probabilistic assessment of the fault displacement accounting also for the pertinent uncertain- ties. The second step is the pipeline structural analysis. The transition from the seismological data to the structural analysis is realized through the fault displacement components as the selected vector intensity measure. The outcome of the proposed methodology is the strain hazard curves for both tensile and compressive longitudinal strains. The resulting strain ca- pacities are compared to strain demands from structural codes in order to assess the potential of pipeline failure due to local buckling or tensile fracture. Furthermore, uncertainty and dis- aggregation results from the fault displacement hazard analysis are presented for the selec- tion of the appropriate deterministic design scenario and the evaluation of the fault displacement hazard parameters. Lastly, the proposed process is a reliable estimation tool for seismic risk assessment of pipeline - fault crossing and a decision making tool for route se- lection and application of preventive measures against the consequences of faulting on pipe- lines.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.7712/120115.3519.612

• https://files.eccomasproceedia.org/papers/compdyn-2015/612.pdf?mtime=20170329171524

• http://users.ntua.gr/divamva/docs/Conferences/melissianos-vamva-gantes_prCOMPDYN2015.pdf,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2557664339