Geohazards

Related virtual library items - Related experience

Background

Pipelines frequently have to cope with hostile or extreme environments subject to a range of geohazards, including:

• Landsliding ranging from slow creep to rapid debris flows
• Ground subsidence and settlement by natural or man-made activities
• Erosion events leading to exposure, spanning and impact incidents
• Ground shaking in seismically active regions
• Displacements across geologically active faults
• Freeze-thaw displacements

In addition, a range of construction activities may present a hazard to pipelines including earthworks, major civil engineering structures and live loading.

In these circumstances, operators need to investigate whether a pipeline is experiencing an increase in load, in order to either satisfy regulatory requirements or demonstrate that the pipeline is fit-for-purpose.

External Loading

Penspen has geotechnical specialists highly experienced in assessing pipeline integrity under ground movement and external loads. The principal services cover:

• Conduction of field surveys and investigation works to determine the nature and extent of loading;
• Qualification of representative loading and load distributions using extensive experience of the key influence of soil restraint on pipeline behaviour
• Detailed calculations to demonstrate the integrity of the pipeline
• Sophisticated finite element analysis and pipeline stress analysis tailored to complex buried pipeline configurations
• Specification and execution of direct monitoring and evaluation programmes for pipeline integrity
• Implementation of measures to protect pipelines from high loads or methods of controlling these within safe levels
• Design and execution of siteworks for remediation of highly loaded pipeline structures

Geohazards

Penspen can assess and manage the effects of geohazards on pipelines with services including:

• Investigation and inspection of pipeline routes to determine the presence of hazards
• Use of screening assessments to rank the level of threat to the pipeline and prioritise the critical sites
• State of the art non-linear analysis of critical sites to determine pipeline integrity
• Probabilistic evaluation of geohazard loads, leading to predictions of probability of failure and failure frequency
• Recommendations on proven methods for mitigating or avoiding geohazards