A review of failure prediction models for oil and gas pipelines

Abstract

Over 10,000 failures have occurred in US oil and gas pipelines in the past 15 years, highlighting the significance of safety measures for such facilities. Various models have been proposed by researchers to predict different failure parameters. Despite such efforts, no comprehensive review has yet been conducted in this domain. The objective of this study is to provide a detailed review of the methodologies proposed to predict failure parameters for oil and gas pipelines. Such a review gathers, organizes, classifies, and analyzes previous contributions in this domain and highlights the gaps associated with different failure prediction models. In addition, the current code-based methodologies for predicting the failure of oil and gas pipelines and their corresponding limitations are discussed. As such, this study provides pipeline operators and researchers with a comprehensive overview of the research and practices in oil and gas pipeline failure and safety. In conclusion, several avenues for future research are discussed. In particular, a maintenance planning procedure directed by pipeline availability analysis is proposed to address the existing gaps and limitations.