Corrosion is a major risk for pipelines, leading to safety, environmental, and financial issues. Reliable assessment methods are important for planning maintenance costs and managing risks. This study introduces a new framework to estimate the likelihood of failure from corrosion. It uses a three-dimensional growth model with inline inspection data to analyze defect formation, growth, and interactions. It also uses finite element analysis (FEA) to improve the accuracy of assessments and reduce the conservatism of traditional methods. The corrosion process is divided into initiation and growth phases; and pipeline strength is evaluated using ASME B31G standard. A probabilistic approach helps reduce computational demands, allowing for the use of FEA in reliability estimation. FEA assessments showed reduced conservatism, which can lead to cost savings by improving failure predictions. This provides pipeline operators with a better way to include accurate models in reliability assessments and enhance risk management.
Taheri et al. (Tue,) studied this question.