A REVIEW ON DESIGN OF CRUDE OIL PIPELINE WALL OPTIMIZATION DUE TO CORROSION AND HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT

Abstract

Crude oil pipeline infrastructures represent a high capital investment, and pipelines must be free from the risk of degradation due to corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement, which could cause environmental hazards and potential threats to human life. Pipeline integrity design, monitoring, and management become crucial, especially in subsea pipelines. Corrosion risk assessment is necessary to track pipeline reliability and life prediction effectively. The pipeline inspections cost a lot of money since the pipeline are hundreds of thousands of kilometres, and the maintenance process interrupts the production rates. Moreover, this cost will triple for the subsea pipeline as it requires special personal qualifications and tools, causing the oil and gas company to pay millions for frequent checks. It is proposed to utilize Finite Element Analysis (FEA) modelling technique and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to optimize the design and preventive maintenance prediction. Hence this paper aims to review the current work on this pipeline design problem, especially in the Tropical region, and discuss the factors that cause the deterioration of structural properties due to the presence of hydrogen within the crude oil.