Corrosion is the biggest enemy of transmission pipelines. According to PHSMA, about 40% of pipeline damage and leakage is the direct result of corrosion, and other types of pipeline damage, such as excavation and natural force damage, are also highly associated with pipeline corrosion and can be easily triggered. Overall, soil corrosivity is the key and influences the degree of corrosion that happens on a pipeline.
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In this section, the objective is to determine the soil corrosivity and assess the corrosion risks of pipelines by developing a continuous soil corrosivity index surface by using ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro in Harris County. Given the fact that soil corrosivity is influenced by a number of different soil properties at different levels, multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) was used as the technique to determine soil corrosivity in Harris County.
Corrosion is the biggest enemy of transmission pipelines. According to PHSMA, about 40% of pipeline damage and leakage is the direct result of corrosion, and other types of pipeline damage, such as excavation and natural force damage, are also highly associated with pipeline corrosion and can be easily triggered. Overall, soil corrosivity is the key and influences the degree of corrosion that happens on a pipeline.
​
In this section, the objective is to determine the soil corrosivity and assess the corrosion risks of pipelines by developing a continuous soil corrosivity index surface by using ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro in Harris County. Given the fact that soil corrosivity is influenced by a number of different soil properties at different levels, multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) was used as the technique to determine soil corrosivity in Harris County.
The lack of preparedness of local governments and energy companies led to this serious state-wide power outage and energy crisis. Therefore, to prevent similar series of disasters from happening, it is crucial to ensure and assess the resiliency and integrity of current transmission pipelines in the State of Texas.
In this project, the main objective is to investigate the driving factors of pipeline incidents (failures, accidents) of currently existing pipelines.
The lack of preparedness of local governments and energy companies led to this serious state-wide power outage and energy crisis. Therefore, to prevent similar series of disasters from happening, it is crucial to ensure and assess the resiliency and integrity of current transmission pipelines in the State of Texas.
In this project, the main objective is to investigate the driving factors of pipeline incidents (failures, accidents) of currently existing pipelines.
Conclusion
In summary, both physical and human factors influence the successful delivery of fuel resources via pipelines to some degree, and possibly result in pipeline incidents occur in the County of Harris. In both sections of this study, south and southeast Harris County are found to be prone to accident failures/damages due to high soil corrosivity, and positive relationships between pipeline incidents and
several human factors. In addition, it should be noted that a large number of incident records are located in Downtown Houston but they neither seem to be related to corrosion nor excavation damages. All of these incidents were recorded in the last century when the fuel resources distribution systems were not fully developed. Therefore, this might influence the overall quality and fitness of the GWR model developed.
Map 6.1
Oerlaying results from the two sections
Limitation & Further Research
Limitations in this study includes:
- Data confidentiality hinders the process of data collection. Some of the pipeline and pipeline incident data are not published to the general public.
- Due to the influence of the global pandemic COVID-19, the Census Tract data might be impacted to some degree and reflects abnormal demographic behaviours (e.g. lower employment rate or high poverty rate).
- The issue of MAUP might influence the result accuracy of the MCE section.
- Due to lack of field examination, the importance of soil properties on the soil corrosivity might not be accurately accessed.
In the future, further research is recommended to discover other possible explanatory variables, and to use census data collected after the influences of COVID-19 are controlled in the United States. Also, expanding the study region from only Harris County to a few more nearby surrounding counties might be useful since the oil industry in Great Houston Area is rapidly expanding. Similar analyses focus on other important industrial cities in the US, such as Chicago, IL, Corpus Christi, TX and Los Angeles-San Diego Area, CA, could be beneficial to narrow down the underlying physical or human factors that are highly related to modern pipeline incidents in the US.