Numerical simulation of oil and gas pipeline corrosion based on single- or coupled-factor modeling: A critical review

Abstract

Numerical simulation is an effective research approach to assess the condition and predict the remaining service life of process pipelines suffering corrosion hazards. This work comprises a critical review of 182 academic articles to analyze environmental factors affecting the pipeline corrosion process, basic numerical methods for corrosion simulation, and single- and coupled-factor numerical investigations. Numerical simulation of corroded pipelines could combine the electrochemical corrosion processes and structural characteristics of pipelines to obtain more accurate results. Multiphysics-based techniques have been successfully applied to simulate the evolution process of corroded pipelines affected by two or more coupled factors under stray current interference. Through integration with learning-based algorithms, predictive studies are conducted to assess the development of corrosion. The challenge for current research is that the remaining types of corrosion are difficult to describe by numerical methods. Opportunities are proposed to improve the pipeline corrosion simulation model to describe more corrosion types and realistic corrosion morphologies, including time-varying corrosion simulation, random field in the simulation, and microelectrochemical corrosion simulation.

Keywords

• Numerical simulation
• Process pipelines
• Corrosion effect
• Pipeline condition assessment
• Pipeline remaining life prediction