Failure prediction of buried pipe network with multiple failure modes and spatial randomness of corrosion

Buried pipes, as a significant civil infrastructure, play a vital role in water, oil and gas transports. In this paper, a systematic method is developed to accurately predict the failure probability of a buried pipeline network at various levels of failure mode, pipe segment and whole pipeline system. A framework of system reliability is proposed to integrate the ultimate and serviceability failures. The random field theory is employed to model the distribution of corrosion, considering its spatial and temporal variability. A time-dependent reliability method is used to determine the probability of pipe failures with either the structural response or resistance modeled as a stochastic process. A worked example is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed methodology. It is found that the developed method is able to predict when, where and what to fail in a pipeline network. It is also found that both the spatial variability of corrosion and auto-correlation of stochastic process between two time points have significant impacts on the probability of pipeline system failure. The paper concludes that the developed method can equip pipe engineers and asset managers with a tool in accurately predicting the failure of pipeline network with a view to cost-effective management of the pipeline network.