ILI Based Dent Screening and Strain Based Analysis

Abstract

Pipeline operators often deal with the large numbers of dents that require further consideration, and are required to prioritize these dents for further investigation and repair. Code guidance is clear on the relative severity of dents based on a depth or associated with welds, corrosion, gouging or cracking. It allows the pipeline operators to prioritize their dig lists and limit the number of “investigative digs” by omitting plain and shallow dents. However, the dent depth criterion has limitations, experiences learned in the past have shown that a dent prioritization based on depth alone, may still leave a significant number of dents in the pipeline which may pose a threat, particularly from local static strain and fatigue. In recent years, strain and fatigue analyses have been included in the assessment of severity of dents in order to better prioritize and effectively repair dents which represent a threat to the structural integrity of pipelines. However, strain analyses require tedious calculation of dent curvature at each data point from ILI reported dent profile. When a large numbers of dents require to be prioritized by strain severity, using this detail calculation is impractical. Therefore, a screening methodology is required to reliably identify candidate dents that require detail strain assessment. In this paper, an aspect-ratio based screening methodology is developed and applied to over 7,000 dents reported by an In-Line Inspection (ILI) caliper tool for a 265 miles long pipeline section. A total of 263 shallow dents which could have injurious strain level were identified and ranked for detail strain and fatigue calculations. In-ditch investigation of 20 dents with LaserScan profiling showed that the developed screening methodology provides an effective tool to capture all the dents with strain equal and 6.5% at 95% confidence level.

Modeling and strain analysis of pipeline dent based on geometric in-line-inspection data

“…Although pipeline integrity assessment has gained achievements in the pipeline industry practices, there is still a lack of a process from data collection to model establishment of the pipeline integrity assessment [3] . In recent years, there are many studies focus on dent assessment with ILI data and FEM analysis, such as the studies done by Katina Tinacos [4] , Race J M [5] , Lei Z [6,7] , Xian-Kui Zhu [8] and Brian Leis [9] . But these studies did not establish the modeling of the pipe based on ILI data in the FEM simulation and strain analysis.…”

Role of pre-accumulated plastic strain on grain boundary corrosion of API-X70 Steel

“…A strain-based criteria based on ASME B31.8 calculations is used instead of the dentdepth based assessment for dent assessment [4]. Strain based dent assessment consists of calculating bending strains in circumferential and longitudinal direction and longitudinal extensional strain of the pipeline.…”

“…Strain based dent assessment consists of calculating bending strains in circumferential and longitudinal direction and longitudinal extensional strain of the pipeline. It has been identified that the strains calculated by ASME B31.8 formulas are twice the actual strains induced in the pipeline [4], [5]. The corrected ASME B31.8 equations for calculating circumferential bending strain and longitudinal bending strain are as follows [4], [5], [6]:…”

“…It has been identified that the strains calculated by ASME B31.8 formulas are twice the actual strains induced in the pipeline [4], [5]. The corrected ASME B31.8 equations for calculating circumferential bending strain and longitudinal bending strain are as follows [4], [5], [6]:…”

“…Extensional strain ε 3 , The corrected equation for the equivalent strain (ε equi ) used for the strain-based dent assessment is as follows [4][5]:…”