Evaluation of Residual Strength of Pipelines Containing Corrosion Defects

Corrosion defects which occur in oil and gas pipelines may grow to a degree which might be sufficient to compromise the safety of the structure. This paper deals with two issues concerning this problem. First, it makes an attempt to assess the accuracy of some of the analytical procedures commonly employed by industry to evaluate the residual strength of pipelines containing corrosion defects. Second, this paper studies the stress distribution characteristics of a pit corrosion defect. Analytical procedures are not available to evaluate the residual strength of this kind of defect. Both tasks are carried out employing the finite element method.