Inspection and maintenance planning of underground pipelines under the combined effect of active corrosion and residual stress

In this paper, a maintenance policy is proposed for pipelines subjected to active corrosion and residual stress, by taking into account imperfect inspection results. The degradation of the pipeline is induced by uniform corrosion, leading to losses of the pipe wall thickness. Localized corrosion is not considered herein, as neither pitting nor crevice corrosion are strongly influenced by external loading conditions and, hence, are not critical in structural strength considerations. When the corroded layers are removed, strain relaxation occurs, causing a redistribution of residual stresses. In parallel, the inspection is applied to detect the corrosion defects, namely the thickness of the corroded layer, and it has a detection threshold under which no corrosion rate can be measured. Due to uncertainties, each inspection is affected by the probability of detecting small defects and the probability of wrong assessment in terms of defect existence and size. The present work aims at integrating imperfect inspection results in the cost model for corroded pipelines, where the failure probabilities are computed by reliability methods. A numerical application on a gas pipe shows the influence of corrosion rates and residual stresses on the optimal maintenance planning.