Abstract
Establishing a robust knowledge of material properties forms the basis of any FFP assessment. In light of the revised Federal Pipeline Safety Regulations in the US, operators of gas transmission pipelines are required to possess Traceable, Verifiable and Complete (TVC) records for input into FFP assessments and to support MAOP. ROSEN has been engaged by several operators to reconfirm the MAOP along the full pipeline length using the Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA) approach. This is a data integration approach using multiple ILI technologies to detect, identify and quantify the inputs required for a robust FFP assessment.
A crucial aspect was the use of TVC material properties in the ECA, in which the RoMat Pipe Grade Sensor (PGS) service was used as the foundation for material property verification, ensuring accurate material properties are used in the ECA. Traditionally, ILI has not been able to provide strength data. However, with the addition of ROSEN’s Pipe Grade Sensor (PGS) technology, pipe populations; defined as a group of pipes with shared material properties and characteristics, can now be reliably identified and a strength grade assigned to each population.
New NDT technologies already available on the market allow us to increase the confidence within the population assessment as well as further characterize the populations of pipes. This “Pipeline DNA” approach, incorporating both the PGS technology and in-field material property verification, ensures accurate or representative material properties are used in any future integrity studies.
This paper describes the ROSEN approach to “Pipeline DNA”, and how it can be used in combination with material verification as a foundation for FFP assessments in an effort to reconfirm MAOP.
