Abstract

It is well known that, for the majority of pressurized pipelines, both the load and the resistance parameters show evident uncertainty, and a probabilistic approach should be applied to assess their behaviors. Concerning reliability estimation of passive components such as pressure vessel and pipeline, there are two kinds of approaches – direct estimation using statistics of historical failure event data, and indirect estimation using probabilistic analysis of the failure phenomena of consideration. The direct estimation method can be validated relatively easily. However, it suffers statistical uncertainty due to scarce data. Indirect estimation method relies on the statistics of material property and those of environment load which are more readily available. As to systems composed of passive components, statistical dependence among component failures is a complex issue that cannot be ignored in reliability estimation.

Abstract

The pipelines used to transport oil and gas from the wellheads to the distribution and refining sites can be subjected to high levels of pressure and temperature. Under such conditions, the pipelines tend to expand, but, if the expansion is inhibited, a significant compressive axial force can arise, leading to their buckling, which can occur in the horizontal or vertical plane. In this context, the objective of the present work is to analyze the upheaval buckling of pipelines, considering the internal pressure to which they are subjected during the transportation of oil and gas as its only triggering. Using the concept of effective axial force, it aims at discussing two different approaches for considering the internal pressure in buckling problems: distributed loads dependent on pipeline curvature and equivalent compressive axial forces with follower and non-follower characteristics. It also discusses the influence of using static or dynamic analysis for such approaches. Concerning the upheaval buckling itself, the work intends to analyze and compare the influence of the soil imperfection amplitudes to the influence of the friction between the pipeline and the ground in the critical loads and in the post-buckling configurations of the pipeline. Besides theoretical research, the objectives are achieved through the development of various numerical models, since geometrically-simple models, without the consideration of the interaction between the pipeline and the ground, until more complex models, with the use of contact models to detect the ground and its imperfections. The models are developed in Giraffe (Generic Interface Readily Accessible for Finite Elements) using geometrically-exact finite element models of beams, undergoing large displacements and finite rotations. Through the research, it is concluded that there is an equivalence between the application of the internal pressure as a distributed load dependent on pipeline curvature and the application of the internal pressure as a follower compressive axial force. Besides this, it is demonstrated that the type of the analysis (static or dynamic) depends on the nature of the physical system analyzed. With the aid of results presented in terms of internal pressure, classical results about the influence of the imperfection amplitudes and of the friction between the pipeline and the ground in buckling are confirmed. It is also showed that the imperfection amplitudes analyzed play a more important role in the post-buckling configurations of the pipeline than the friction. Os dutos utilizados para transportar petróleo e gás natural das reservas até os locais de distribuição e refino podem estar submetidos a elevados níveis de pressão e temperatura. Sob tais condições, os dutos tendem a se expandir, porém, se a expansão é inibida, uma força axial de compressão significativa pode surgir nos dutos, ocasionando a flambagem lateral ou vertical dos mesmos. Dentro desse contexto, o objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar a flambagem vertical de dutos, considerando a pressão interna à qual eles estão submetidos durante o transporte de petróleo e gás natural como o único parâmetro desencadeador da flambagem. Usando o conceito de força axial efetiva, o trabalho objetiva discutir duas abordagens diferentes para considerar a pressão interna nos problemas de flambagem: carregamentos distribuídos dependentes da curvatura do duto e forças axiais de compressão equivalentes à pressão com caráter seguidor e não seguidor. O trabalho também discute a influência de usar a análise estática ou dinâmica para analisar essas abordagens de carregamento. Com relação à flambagem vertical propriamente dita, o trabalho pretende analisar e comparar a influência das amplitudes das imperfeições presentes no solo com a influência do atrito entre o duto e o solo nas cargas críticas e nas configuração pós-críticas do duto. Além de pesquisa teórica, os objetivos são atingidos através do desenvolvimento de vários modelos numéricos, desde modelos geometricamente simples, sem a consideração da interação entre o duto e o solo, até modelos mais complexos, com o uso de modelos de contato para detectar o solo e suas imperfeições. Os modelos são desenvolvidos no Giraffe (Generic Interface Readily Accessible for Finite Elements) usando elementos finitos geometricamente exatos de viga, sujeitos a grandes deslocamentos e rotações finitas. Através da pesquisa, conclui-se que existe uma equivalência entre a aplicação da pressão interna como um carregamento distribuído dependente da curvatura do duto e a aplicação da pressão interna como uma força axial de compressão seguidora. Além disso, demonstra-se que o tipo de análise (estática e dinâmica) depende da natureza do sistema físico analisado. Com a ajuda de resultados apresentados em termos de pressão interna, os resultados clássicos sobre a influência das amplitudes das imperfeições e do atrito entre o duto e o solo são confirmados. Também é mostrado que as amplitudes das imperfeições analisadas desempenham uma maior influência nas configurações pós-críticas do duto do que o atrito.

Abstract

Due to external interference, pipelines used for onshore as well as offshore operations can present dent and gouge defects. As such defects can seriously impair facilities’ integrity and performance, it is necessary to evaluate the strains in the vicinity of these defects. The development of non-destructive approaches to assess defects severity remains an issue in the pipeline industry. In the present study, micro-hardness - strain relationships are established for three steel grades of pipeline materials: API X52 modern, API X52 vintage and API X63 vintage. The micro-hardness – strain correlations of the three pipe materials are analyzed in order to verify if they can be described by a master curve. For that purpose, Notched Tensile (NT) tests are performed in Longitudinal (L) and Transverse (T) directions for each grade in order to reach high strain values (up to 70%). The relationship proposed by Tabor was improved with the introduction of three new parameters that allow considering actual material behavior.

Abstract

common method to define a parallel solution for a computational problem consists in finding a way to use the Divide and Conquer paradigm in order to have processors acting on its own data and scheduled in a parallel fashion. MapReduce is a programming model that follows this paradigm, and allows for the definition of efficient solutions by both decomposing a problem into steps on subsets of the input data and combining the results of each step to produce final results. Albeit used for the implementation of a wide variety of computational problems, MapReduce performance can be negatively affected whenever the replication factor grows or the size of the input is larger than the resources available at each processor. In this paper we show an alternative approach to implement the Divide and Conquer paradigm, named dynamic pipeline. The main features of dynamic pipelines are illustrated on a parallel implementation of the well-known problem of counting triangles in a graph. This problem is especially interesting either when the input graph does not fit in memory or is dynamically generated. To evaluate the properties of pipeline, a dynamic pipeline of processes and an ad-hoc version of MapReduce are implemented in the language Go, exploiting its ability to deal with channels and spawned processes. An empirical evaluation is conducted on graphs of different topologies, sizes, and densities. Observed results suggest that dynamic pipelines allows for an efficient implementation of the problem of counting triangles in a graph, particularly, in dense and large graphs, drastically reducing the execution time with respect to the MapReduce implementation. Comment: In Proceedings PROLE 2016, arXiv:1701.03069 Document type: Article

Abstract

We present pipeComp ( https://github.com/plger/pipeComp ), a flexible R framework for pipeline comparison handling interactions between analysis steps and relying on multi-level evaluation metrics. We apply it to the benchmark of single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis pipelines using simulated and real datasets with known cell identities, covering common methods of filtering, doublet detection, normalization, feature selection, denoising, dimensionality reduction, and clustering. pipeComp can easily integrate any other step, tool, or evaluation metric, allowing extensible benchmarks and easy applications to other fields, as we demonstrate through a study of the impact of removal of unwanted variation on differential expression analysis. Document type: Article

Abstract

ns4:p"Pipeline tools are becoming increasingly important within the field of bioinformatics. Using a pipeline manager to manage and run workflows comprised of multiple tools reduces workload and makes analysis results more reproducible. Existing tools require significant work to install and get running, typically needing pipeline scripts to be written from scratch before running any analysis. We present Cluster Flow, a simple and flexible bioinformatics pipeline tool designed to be quick and easy to install. Cluster Flow comes with 40 modules for common NGS processing steps, ready to work out of the box. Pipelines are assembled using these modules with a simple syntax that can be easily modified as required. Core helper functions automate many common NGS procedures, making running pipelines simple. Cluster Flow is available with an GNU GPLv3 license on GitHub. Documentation, examples and an online demo are available at "ns4:ext-link xmlns:ns3="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" ns3:href="http://clusterflow.io""http://clusterflow.io"/ns4:ext-link"."/ns4 Document type: Article

Abstract

Damage caused by people and organizations unconnected with the pipeline management is a major risk faced by pipelines, and its consequences can have a huge impact. However, the present measures to monitor this have major problems such as time delays, overlooking threats, and false alarms. To overcome the disadvantages of these methods, analysis of big location data from mobile phone systems was applied to prevent third-party damage to pipelines, and a third-party damage prevention system was developed for pipelines including encryption mobile phone data, data preprocessing, and extraction of characteristic patterns. By applying this to natural gas pipelines, a large amount of location data was collected for data feature recognition and model analysis. Third-party illegal construction and occupation activities were discovered in a timely manner. This is important for preventing third-party damage to pipelines. Document type: Article

Abstract

This work deals with the analysis of the interaction of earthquakes with pipelines transporting and distributing natural gas for industrial and civil use. To this aim, a new large data-set of seismic information classified on the basis of selected seismological, geotechnical and structural parameters is presented and analyzed. Particular attention is devoted to continuous pipelines under strong ground shaking, which is the geotechnical effect due to passage of waves in soil. Results are provided in terms of the likelihood of the loss of containment with respect to Peak Ground Velocity (PGV), a seismic intensity parameter which may be easily retrieved either from local authorities and public databases or from site dependent hazard analysis. Fragility functions and seismic intensity threshold values for the failure and for the loss of containment of gas from pipeline systems are also given. The obtained functions can be easily implemented in existing codes and guidelines for industrial risk assessment, land-use planning, and for the design of public distribution network, with specific reference to Natural - Technological interaction (Na-Tech). © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract

The structural integrity of pipelines undergone seismic waves is crucial for industrial installation and for the distributed transportation networks of gaseous and liquid fluids. However, it is nowadays proved that the definition of seismic vulnerability based on purely, structural-derived limit states or on return-to-service or even on the purely economic repair rate indications, is not sufficient for the holistic analysis of risks. On the other hand, detailed numerical studies based on full analyses (including fluid/soil/structure interaction) are too expensive for the aims of risk assessment and simplified methodologies are still needed.In this paper, a large database of earthquake-induced damage for steel and non-steel pipelines is presented. Each case was analyzed and collected from post-earthquake reconnaissance, seismic engineering reports and technical papers. The database may be adopted for the definition of specific vulnerability function (fragility curves), which are commonly implemented in multi-hazard analyses, and more in general for the assessment of Na-Tech risks (Natural events triggering Technological disasters). © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess whether the value of flexibility can influence the investment decision between CO"inf"2"/inf" ship and pipeline transport and, therefore, the way the infrastructure develops. For this, the value of a carbon capture and storage project are calculated with the standard net present value (NPV) and with the least-squares Monte Carlo method, which is a real option approach (ROA).Results of the NPV and ROA show that ships are preferred for small volumes over large distances. For instance, for a design capacity of 2.5Mt/y, pipelines are preferred for 250km and ships for 500km. The ROA shows that the option value to abandon the project and to switch off the CO"inf"2"/inf" capture unit temporarily are about 2-4 and 5 times as high for the ship compared to the pipeline configurations, respectively. The option to connect to another storage reservoir has a value of "1000M€ for the 10MtCO"inf"2"/inf"/y configurations. Consequently, this option turns the project values positive for the 10MtCO"inf"2"/inf"/y pipeline and shipping configurations over a distance of 250 and 500km.Overall, the value of flexibility did not change the preferred transportation mode from pipeline to ship transport, at least for the considered options to abandon the project, switch off the capture unit temporarily and switch to another storage reservoir. However, under the assumptions made, all 10MtCO"inf"2"/inf"/y cases were not profitable with the NPV approach, while they were profitable with the ROA.