• PRCI PR-15-9504
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PRCI PR-15-9504

  • Fatigue Based Guidelines for Pipeline Storage Facilities
  • Report / Survey by Pipeline Research Council International, 06/01/1998
  • Publisher: PRCI

$73.00$145.00


L51787e

Southwest Research Institute

Need: The effect on service life of line packing natural gas pipelines to accommodate peak demand periods has not be thoroughly investigated. Under typical service conditions the maximum allowable operating pressure is usually in the range 4500-5500 kPa (650-800 psi), but extreme line packing procedures can raise this by 2000-3500 kPa (300-500 psi) and result in a significant increase in cyclic pressure excursions compared to normal pressures. The increased cyclic pressure ranges and mean pressures due to line packing could have a serious deleterious influence on the integrity of pipelines containing crack-like defects resulting from stress corrosion or other causes.

Benefit: To assess the influence of line packing on the long term structural integrity of defected pipelines requires the availability of material property data that characterize the rate at which a flaw will extend under cyclic pressure conditions and the critical conditions at fracture, and a computational tool to perform the calculations needed to predict service lifetimes. The objective of the present work was to make both of these requirements available to gas industry engineers so that they could quickly and efficiently assess different line packing procedures in terms of their effects on the life of a pipeline. Towards these ends, a literature search was performed to identify what fatigue and fracture data were available for pipeline steels under typical service conditions.

Result: The results of the search were critically reviewed and summarized in a table which is reproduced in this final report. In addition, a limited telephone survey was made of industry engineers in order to obtain the operating information that is necessary to characterize typical line packing practices in terms of pressure histories. The information gleaned from the search and the survey were then used to develop a computer program, named PACKLIFE, which can perform a service lifetime calculation for natural gas transmission pipelines containing crack-like or planar flaws and provide a medium for transferring the fracture mechanics technology needed for the lifetime assessment to gas industry engineers. The developed program, PACKLIFE, is being delivered to PRCI as part of the current work.

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