PIPELINE MECHANICAL DAMAGE INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

With the resolution and capabilities of the latest generation multi-sensor in-line inspection tools, detection and sizing of mechanical damage (i.e. dents, metal loss, etc) and their interaction is becoming more prevalent. As a result, the number of features requiring consideration in terms of integrity assessment is ever increasing. The following paper presents a mechanical damage integrity management framework, intended to allow the assessment of a large number of features to support maintenance planning decisions. The framework is centred around organizing and collecting features into groups that share similar integrity driving parameters. An example demonstration of the framework is also presented using the results of a single ILI run on a small diameter pipeline. The example assessment focuses on shallow dents interacting with metal loss features where the metal loss features are treated as localized, gouge-like features.