Reliability Based Design and Assessment for Location-Specific Failure Threats With Application to Natural Gas Pipelines

The acceptance criteria used in reliability based design and assessment are defined as a set of reliability targets (where reliability is defined as 1.0 minus the probability of failure). Because of the linear nature of pipeline systems, reliability targets are defined on a per kilometer-year basis. Such targets are directly applicable to failure causes (or limit states) that are equally likely to occur anywhere along a segment of the pipeline (e.g., equipment impact or yielding/rupture of defect-free pipe under internal pressure). They are, however, not directly applicable for design and assessment situations involving limit states that apply at known specific locations. Examples include design for geotechnical loads on a particular unstable slope or integrity assessment of a corrosion defect at a specific location (as determined by in-line inspection). In previous work, reliability targets for natural gas pipelines have been developed on the basis of appropriate societal and individual risk criteria. This paper describes an approach to adapt these targets and demonstrate compliance with them, for location-specific limit states. The approach is based on using separate checks to ensure that the individual and societal risk criteria underlying the targets are met. An example is included to demonstrate application of the approach to design a pipeline on an unstable slope.