Seismic response evaluation of the impact of corrosion on buried pipelines based on the Markov process

Water distribution and gas supply systems are among the infrastructure systems that have many buried steel pipelines. Corrosion gradually appears inside and outside of the pipe walls over the service life of these pipelines, the corrosion is primarily caused by the surrounding soil and the materials that flow through the pipelines. However, due to the uncertainty of the characteristics of the soil and materials, the size of the corrosion region is a stochastic variable. In this paper, using a homogeneous Markov process, a model is presented to simulate the occurrence of corrosion. Then, in combinations with a linear corrosion development model, the probability density function of the pipeline area corrosion percentage is derived. Based on the corrosion model, the pipeline seismic displacements and stresses are predicted. Furthermore, using the random perturbation approach, the mean and variance of the pipeline seismic response are given. To illustrate the validity of the proposed approach, a 200-meter long pipeline is numerically investigated and its random seismic response is obtained.