Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

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Engineering Failure Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engfailanal

The effect of welded joint repair on a corroded pipeline reliability

T
subjected to the hardness spatial variability and soil aggressiveness
Y. Sahraouia, M. Benamirab, M. Nahala, , F. Nouadriab, A. Chateauneufc
⁎

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, Mohamed Cherif Messaadia University, Po Box 1553, Souk Ahras
41000, Algeria
b
Industrial Mechanics Laboratory, Badji Mokhtar Annaba University, BP 12, 23000, Algeria
c
Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, SIGMA Clermont, Institut Pascal, F-63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In this paper, the effects of welded joints repair on corroded pipeline reliability, by taking into
Welded joints account hardness spatial variability and soil aggressiveness, were investigated. An experimental
Pipeline reliability study was carried out on X70 type tested pipes, having undergone a series of successive repairs.
Spatial variability The hardness in different welding sub-zones (i.e. Base Metal “BM”, Heat Affected Zone “HAZ”
Karhunen-Loève
and Weld Metal “WM”) after each repair have been characterized experimentally, where the
Monte Carlo
statistical correlation “ yield strength - hardness” was determined, in order to be coupled with the
corrosion model. Furthermore, a probabilistic method is presented for assessing time-dependent
reliability of a buried corroded pipeline, considering spatial variability of hardness and soil ag-
gressiveness over the pipe entire length. The failure probabilities in various weld sub-zones are
computed by Monte Carlo method and the Karhunen-Loeve expansion is used to model the
hardness spatial variability and soil aggressiveness as correlated stochastic fields. A significant
impact of welded joints repairs effects on the system reliability was found especially in the first
repair.

1. Introduction

Hydrocarbons industry is entirely based on the use of pipelines, which have a mandatory role for transporting oil and gas, as well
as they ensuring different function such as production, distribution and transmission [1]. Pipelines are most often constructed from
steel pipes, assembled by welding. That’s why welding of high strength steels is also a challenge in pipeline construction. The most
important steels properties are strength and toughness which are exposed to dangers created by ductile and brittle cracks propagation
[2,3].
In practice, the welding quality of the pipelines cannot be perfect and may present defects, where the acceptability criteria of such
defects is generally defined by standards in order to ensure the pipelines integrity [4,5]. However, techn-economical parameters
require manufacturing managers to locally eliminate welding defects using repairs, to avoid cutting or total section rejection. Even
though welding repair is a part of pipeline manufacturing process can alter mechanical properties of welded joint due to considerable
increasing temperature it through thermal cycles of welding [6,7].
Aging pipelines often suffer from several forms of corrosion; their management involves continuous monitoring to avoid various
problems that can affect the integrity of pipelines. In literature, numerous researches have demonstrated that when corrosion defects

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: m.nahal@univ-soukahras.dz (M. Nahal).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfailanal.2020.104854
Received 8 April 2020; Received in revised form 19 June 2020; Accepted 17 August 2020
Available online 19 August 2020
1350-6307/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

occur, a pressurized pipeline can undergo a small leak or burst. When the wall of pipe is penetrated by a defect, a small leak occurs,
but if the pipe wall undergoes plastic collapse due to internal pressure, burst can be occurs [8,9], degrading the pipeline lifetime in
operation and affect increasingly its reliability.
The Study of failure probability of corroded pipeline is considered as a main issue, reflected in the existing literature by numerous
research works which in fact highlighting the importance of this work area. Probabilistic reliability analysis examples can be found in
literature such as: A.P. Teixeira et al [10] investigated the failure probability of a corroded pipeline using Form (first order reliability
method) and Monte Carlo simulation, Q. Li et al [8] used FITNET FFS procedure and Monte Carlo simulation to correlate corrosion
effects on reliability of corroded pipeline, the fracture mechanics was applied by M. Ahammed [11] for adopting failure model in
pipelines, X. Zhang et al[12] analyzed the failure probability of corroded pipeline focused on Monte Carlo simulation and de-
terministic approach, the approach of 2D fussy Monte Carlo simulation was provided by Singh and Markeset [13] for estimating the
failure likelihood of a pressurized corroded pipeline.
The major disadvantage of steel is corrosion susceptibility, especially in soil burying cases [14,15], the soil complex amalgam of
solids and fluids (liquid and gaz) can in most cases accelerate the corrosion processing due to variable aggressiveness of soil,
nevertheless, most current predictive models of buried pipelines don’t consider high spatial variability of mechanical properties and
corrosion [16–18]. Over the past decade, increasing number of executive programs are adopted by pipeline managers for reliability
based corrosion analyzing [19,20]. In fact, three essential components compose such programs: detecting and sizing corrosion defect
using high resolution in-line inspections, the reliability evaluation of pipeline system based on results of inspections and analysis of
defect repairs in pipelines [21]. The motivation behind reliability analysis is to understand the structural system uncertainties
propagation, and provide necessary information for inspection planning [22]. In fact, a very few research of corrosion models
considering corrosion spatial variability and heterogeneity of segment, leading to more failure probability estimation where the
underground pipeline residual lifetime evaluating is mainly penalized by corrosion models which condemning structure prematurely.
Therefore, the existing models improvement needs more development.
Various factors allied to soil physical and chemical heterogeneity explaining spatial variability, such as composition and con-
centration of chemical species, resistivity, ph, water content…etc. The results of several researches indicate that factors mentioned
above change with the environment aggressiveness and the pipeline configurations characterized by topographic profile. The ex-
planation of material losses caused by corrosion damage of a buried pipeline is quite complex, so the aforementioned factors should
be taken into account by methods applied for evaluating metal loss. The concerted efforts of relevant stakeholders demonstrating the
complex of corrosion and the variability of above mentioned factors, which explain that predictive models are affected by large
amount of uncertainties. For this, it is mandatory to predict corrosion rates and estimate the remaining useful life of buried pipelines.
In fact, various corrosion types should be considered for estimating and evaluating the probability of failure of corroded pipeline.
Likewise, the material and loading conditions should be taken into account. Spatial variability along the pipeline [14,23] and
stochastic nature of localized corrosion [24] actually characterize a real system complexity, although it can be represented as
continuous or discontinuous stochastic fields, also have to be considered for stochastic modeling of pipelines. Obviously, the cor-
related pit depth discretization considered a countable set and varied with the entire pipe length, which can make from localized
corrosion a good Karhunen-loève expansion candidate [25,26]. In general, a three mainly groups can be found for classifying the
random field discretization: average discretization methods, point discretization methods, and series expansion methods [27]. The
reader can find more details about each methods advantages and disadvantages in [27,28]. The efficiency of random-field dis-
cretization method is characterized by precisely aptitude representation of original random field through a lowest number of random
variables (i.e. a continuous field representation capability via few discrete variables), among aforementioned random field dis-
cretization methods the series expansion discretization seems to be the best method. According to numerous existing researches in
literature [29], and respecting the number of random variables, the Karhunen-loève expantion seems to present a better precision
among the method of approximation of the auto-correlated random fields using the sum finite weighted random variables [25].
The aim of this paper is to assess the safety of corroded steel pipelines by considering the effect of successive repair of welded
joints. Compared to previous paper [26], the present work is mainly concerned with the influence of welded joints repair on the
reliability of corroded pipeline, by taking into account the spatial variability of hardness and soil aggressiveness. For this reason,
extensive experimental work has been carried out to characterize the hardness in different welding sub-zones (i.e. Base Metal “BM”,
Heat Affected Zone “HAZ” and Weld Metal “WM”) after each repair. The idea of the provided model in the present work is to handle
both hardness space variability of welding joint due to soil aggressiveness and time variability of the pipe remaining wall thickness by
cumulated corrosion. The presented methodology consider pipeline as a series segment system, containing multiple localized cor-
rosion defect. Wherever, any single segment defect inducing the whole system failure. First, an experimental study was conducted
aiming to measure different welding sub-zones hardness after each repair and sighting the statistical correlation involving yield
strength and hardness. Moreover, a probabilistic methodology is presented for evaluating time-dependent failure probability of a
buried corroded pipeline, considering spatial variability of hardness and the aggressiveness of soil over the entire length of pipe. The
test data is then introduced in the probabilistic model, where the various failure probabilities of welded sub-zones have been cal-
culated using Monte Carlo simulation. The Karhunen-Loève decomposition also have been used for modeling the spatial variability of
hardness and soil aggressiveness as a correlated stochastic field, the pipeline is modeled as a series system, and the failure probability
of system was calculated for different cases showing the repairs effects on the reliability of a buried corroded pipeline.

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Table 1
The pipeline steel chemical composition.
Composition C Si Mn P S Cr Ni Mo Cu Nb Ti V N

Quantity (%) 0.12 0.45 1.70 0.025 0.015 0.3 0.3 0.1 0.25 0.06 0.06 0.1 0.012

2. Experimental procedure

2.1. Materials and samples

Samples used in the present investigation was API 5L X70 steel pipe, applied to high-pressure gas transportation. The steel average
chemical composition is presented in table 1. The pipelines were formed using spiral welding process with 1066.8 mm outside
diameter and 12.9 mm wall thickness.

2.2. Samples preparation and testing:

In order to highlight the effect of weld repair, we consider the repaired area as a singular zone. For this reason, it will be
interesting to compare its mechanical properties to the rest of the pipeline. Consequently, the recent API 5L standard required that
samples for hardness test should contain a section of the helical joint at their center and each weld joint included indentation on Base
Metal (BM), Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) and Weld Metal (WM).
The Vickers method HV10 was applied for hardness measurement according to the layout diagram of 16 measurement points as
shown in Fig. 1. The data points used for hardness evaluation were 7,8,9,10 (in vertical centerline of seam weld) for weld metal, 4,5,6
11,12,13 for HAZ in the left and the right side of fusion line, respectively, and 1,2,3,14,15,16 for base metal in the left and the right,
respectively.
The choice of the hardness measurement as a means of detecting the variability of the mechanical properties is justified, since it is
possible through this test to have local measurements relating to each zone and for each repair operation. The measurements were
carried out at the quality control laboratory of the company ALFAPIPE Annaba, by using an experimental device which is “ZWICK
HV10” type (Fig. 2) which provides hardness in HV10.
Once the welding operation is completed, an X-ray examination is carried out to detect any defect that may exist in the weld joint,
the validity or not of the weld is pronounced according to the acceptability criteria of the standard, which can require repair of the
welded joint in the part where defect is located. In order to analyze the effect of successive repairs on the mechanical properties of the
pipeline, three repairs were carried out, where the hardness measurement is realized after each repair at different sub-zones as shown
in Fig. 3. The welding repair is a manual operation which is part of the manufacturing process and takes place according to the
following steps:

1. Gouging: A step corresponding to material removal from the welding, making a furrow along the joint, using an ARC-AIR dis-
positive.
2. The filling: A first filler metal layer is deposited using electrode.
3. Filling-finishing: The joint final thickness is obtained by filling-finishing.

In order to integrate the hardness measurements in the reliability model, it was necessary to convert them into strength. For doing
this, the methodology developed in the work of S. H. HASHEMI [30]was adopted. The method idea is mainly based on an observation
relative to the dispersion of hardness measurements and strength. It has been found that the hardness is characterized by a lower
dispersion compared to the strength for a given sample. Consequently, each hardness measurement brings together a set of stress
values. The relationship between these two quantities is established between the average of the strength recorded for each hardness
measurement and the actual value of this hardness measurement. Therefore, the correlation is obtained following a linear smoothing

Fig. 1. Sketch of hardness measurement (points arrangement).

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Fig. 2. The device of hardness measuring HV10.

of the point cloud corresponding to the couples (HV10, strength). The author has demonstrated that the relationship between
hardness and strength (yield strength or tensile strength) is linear. Also, the author has highlighted that the relationship between
yield strength and tensile strength is also linear.
For X70 type steel studied case, the HV10 hardness conversion to yield strength (fy) in base metal was obtained by the following
relation:
fy = 0.675 Hv + 384.1 (1)
Fig. 4 shows a graphic representation of linear correlation between the hardness measurements HV10 and yield strength cor-
responding to different zones. To introduce the welded joint, different approaches are considered in this study. A first approach can
be adopted on the assumption that the welded joint is part of the base metal continuum. This allows to considering that the welded
joint obeys the same correlation previously established from the base metal. Consequently, it would be possible to quantify the yield
strength of the joint, from its hardness measurements. It is also assumed that this relationship remains valid for the various repairs.
A second approach can be considered the fact that the strength at the weld joint is different than the base metal. Indeed, tensile
tests on samples with welded joint have presented a higher tensile strength compared with base metal. However, only experimental
values of tensile strength and hardness at the joint are available. Based on these two parameters, a new correlation can be established
which, can reflect better the relational aspect between the mechanical properties specific to this part of the pipeline. This approach is
developed taking into account the three zones (base metal, HAZ. and weld metal), under the following assumptions:
- A linear relationship between tensile strength and HV10 hardness.
- A linear relationship between yield strength and tensile strength.
- The previous relationships remain valid in repairs cases.
The obtained smoothing of cloud point between tensile strength and hardness in welded joint give a linear relationship as
presented in Fig. 5 which is presented as following:
r = 0.1973 Hv + 658, 98 (2)
The yield strength can be given as following
fy = 1.002 r 115.2 (3)
The last approach is based on hardness measurements observation after each repair. It is noted that removing and adding metal
after a repair is located on filler metal upper portion, which is defined by 7 and 8 measurement points illustrated in Fig. 1. It can be

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Fig. 3. Test samples for hardness measurement: (a) without repair; (b) 1st repair; (c) 2nd repair; (d) 3rd repair.

Fig. 4. Yield strength and hardness linear correlation of X70 steel (base metal).

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Fig. 5. Tensile strength and hardness HV10 correlation.

interesting to confine this zone, considering only the hardness measurements of 7, 8, 9 and 10 points which do a major role in
dispersion increasing from a repair to another one. These values are used in welded joint correlation, which will more revealing the
dispersive nature and measurements effect at welded joint.

3. System definition

Oil and gas pipelines are typically made of steel, usually buried directly in soil [31]. Considering pipeline in direct contact with
soil and welded joint as a singular area (irregular zone) [32], it was very interesting to analyse the spatial variability of the me-
chanical properties of the area and the aggressiveness of soil because it can affect significantly the reliability of global system. In this
work, pipeline is modeled as a series system forming by pipes segment which affected by localized corrosion in several zones (Fig. 6).
The failure mode corresponds to the pipeline behavior under corrosion effect and internal pressure. Corrosion in pipelines is generally
generated by the external conditions of environmental (elements composition of soil for underground pipeline), which is con-
tinuously varying along the pipeline length. Obviously, the spatial correlation of soil aggressiveness will define the corrosion defect
size and number in area unit, so all above information have been considered for assessing the integrity of system. The capacity of
corroded pipeline under such applied service pressure can in fact characterizing the failure mode. By considering the pipeline
capacity, system uncertainties and variations the reliability analysis aims to assess the failure probability of the considered pipeline.

3.1. Probabilistic degradation model

The Pipe failure is identified using a semi-empirical model based on rupture mechanics, for determining the pipeline burst

Fig. 6. Pipeline segments with localized corrosion defect.

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

pressure, regarding the corrosion defect geometry [1,33]. A widely accepted equation of pipeline capacity have attract the attention
of researches in the existing literature, which have been recognized as conservative by numerous investigators. On the other hand,
ignored the spatial correlation of corrosion, the computational of the system failure probability is assumed as conservative. The
failure pressure is expressed by [11] as following:

t 1 d (T )/ t
Pr = 2(fy + 68.95)
D 1 d (T )/ tM (4)

In this expression, t is the pipe wall thickness, D is the outer diameter, T the pipe age, fy the yield strength of welded joint, and M
is the Folias factor, also known as bulging factor, which is a semi-empirical factor that covers rupture mechanics aspects (ie an
increase in stress) and it’s defined as:

L (T )2 L (T ) 4 L (T ) 2
1 + 0, 6275 Dt
0, 003375 D 2t 2
, for Dt
50
M=
L (T ) 2 L (T ) 2
0, 0032 Dt
+ 3, 3, for Dt
> 50 (5)

With, L (.) is the corrosion defect length, by adopting stochastic fields, the yield strength, depth d (T ) and length L (T ) of a
longitudinal corrosion defect as a function of time, can be determined by:

0.675 Hv ( x , ) + 384.1, Firstapproach

fy =
0.198 Hv ( x , ) + 545.1, Secondapproach (6)

d (T ) = k ( x , ) T n (7)

L (T ) = k ( x , ) T n (8)

With Hv is the measurement of hardness of welded joint, k and n are uncertain quantities, it can be obtained from soil properties
[34,35], is the length to depth ratio of localized corrosion defects, x and are the space vectors and stochastic variables, re-
spectively. In fact, the k and n quantities defining the corrosion mechanism and can be identified by statistical studies [34–36],
depending on aggressive concentration of soil elements (i.e. chloride, sodium, etc.) from the pipeline and soil wide range k and n have
been derived. In literature Romanoff [34] identifying k and n as variables, also Romanoff was estimating the function power
parameters which obtained from the base data given by the National Bureau of Standards (exposure program developed during
30 years). In equations (6) and (7), the variable × corresponds to pipeline abscise longitudinal, and θ is a hazard generic variable. A
limit state functionGij , for each individual defect j in pipe segment i, corresponding to safety margin, also applied failure equation is
conventionally defined by the difference between pipe resistance prij and applied pressure pa to the same pipe section and it is given as
following:
Gij = Gij (x ij , ) = prij pa (9)

Where x ij is the defect j existing in the pipe segment i along the pipeline length. Consequently, the individual failure probability
(i.e. of a section) is given as following:
Pf ij = P [Gij 0] (10)

Where Pf ij is the operator of probability. Furthermore, the pipeline is formed of n limited segment which is assembled in series. As
explained above, each segment i (i = 1….n) exist a number of localized corrosion defectmi , and each defect j (j = 1…mi ) can
produced a cross-section failure at the location x ij . In pipeline two cross-sections can be occurred at the same time generating a suspect
failure, for a given pipeline composed from n segment a Ppipeline probability of failure is given as following:

PPipeline = [P (G11 0) + P (G12 0, G11 > 0) + .........+ P (G1m1 0, G11 > 0, ......,G1mi 1 > 0)]
+ [P (G21 0) + P (G22 0, G21 > 0) + .........+P (G2m2 0, G21 > 0, ......,G2m2 1 > 0)]
+ . ......+ [P (Gn1 0) + P (Gn2 0, Gn1 > 0) + ........+ P (Gnmn 0, Gn1 > 0, ......,Gnmn 1 > 0)] (11)

The above cited expression considers a pipeline as a series system formed of sub-series systems because a pipeline is composed of a
number of welded segments which present for each one a localized corrosion defect and a given failure at any segment leads to the
failure of the whole system.

3.2. Failure probability evaluation

A stochastic model of a corroded pipeline subjected to internal pressure with taken into account spatial variability of hardness and
soil aggressiveness was employed in this study. The deterioration process due to corrosion will in fact reduce the structure (pipeline)
resistance which is time-dependent. Therefore, this framework is properly fitted by stochastic fields, and Karhunen-Loève expansion
can define more the corrosion field where the cumulative probability function can be computed easily using Monte Carlo simulations.

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

3.2.1. Corrosion stochastic field

Among the powerful tools to generate correlated fields realizations, the Karhunen-Loève decomposition allows to approximate
random fields k ( x , ) etHv ( x , ) by finite series of normalized independent random variables, the reader can be referred to [26] for
more explanation and details of the Karhunen-Loève decomposition, the set of a random variable i ( ) is defined as following:
M
k ( x , ) = k¯ ( x ) + i i (x ) i( ) (12)
i=1

M
¯ (x ) +
Hv ( x , ) = Hv ' '
i (x ) i( )
i=1
i (13)
One of the main method advantages is the decoupling of spatial and stochastic variables( x , ) , the decomposition first terms are
spatial means of random fieldsk¯ ( x ) , Hv
¯ ( x ) . Spatial dependence appears in kernel Eigen modes of covariance ( i , i ), ( 'i , 'i ), where
,i 'i are the Eigen values and i , 'i are the corresponding Eigen victors.

3.2.2. Failure probability for series system

Due to complexity of the system spatial-time in this study, the enhanced Monte-Carlo (MC) method is used for estimating the
probability of failure and of repair. In reality, the Monte Carlo simulation is applied in this work as a pragmatic approach for
evaluating the failure probability time-depending of the structure according to different variables distributions using by the presented
model, F. Caleyo et al [37] have illustrated with more details the Monte Carlo method. The failure probability of a single segment i
having mi number of corrosion defects is given by:
mi
PFSegment = P ( j = 1 [Gij 0]) (14)
Consequently, the failure probability of n segments composed system can be written as following:
n mi
PFSysteme = P [ i ( j = 1 [Gij 0])] (15)
In this expression, pipeline is considered as series system composed of series sub-systems. Indeed, the pipeline is a long tubular
pipe composed of a welded segments and each segment presenting a localized corrosion defects, any defect failure inducing segment
failure, and any segment failure resulting the entire system failure.
The methodology for computing the pipeline failure probability is presented by the flowchart as it depicted in Fig. 7. For gen-
erating the random variable in the Karhunen-loève expansion and the other random variables of the pipe, (initial geometry and
internal pressure, etc.), Monte Carlo simulations have been applied. The realization of the corrosion and hardness stochastic fields are
obtained by the expansion using the field covariance function [26]. The corroded wall thickness is then computed for all the defects
in all the segments. For each sample, the limit state function is evaluated for each cross-section xIK. The failure probabilities of the
cross-sections, the segments and the pipe are then computed by Monte Carlo estimate. The procedure is repeated for the specified
number of Monte Carlo Samples.

4. Impact of welded joint repair on pipeline reliability

The numerical application of corroded pipelines aims for showing the repair welded joint effects on pipeline reliability con-
sidering spatial variability of hardness and soil aggressiveness after each repair at different welding subzones. The tested pipe is X70
type, with outer diameter D and wall thikness t, is subjected to the internal pressure Pa. The input data are provided in Table 2, where
the random variables are considered as lognormally distributed. In this work, a pipeline considered longuer is 200 km, undergrouding
in generic soil type containing several soil types, where the values of k and n are given in Table 1 [26,37]. For analizing successive
repairs effect on corroded pipeline reliability, only three repairs are considered. The hardness values after each repair at different
welded sub-zones are shown in Table 3.
In the following sections, the impact of welded joint repair on the pipeline reliability is carried out with respect to three con-
siderations:

- Effect of successive repair in each weld sub-zones.

- Influence of the correlation length.
- Impact of the Gas pressure.

4.1. Successive repair effect in each weld sub-zones

Successive repairs effect is now considered in corroded pipelines reliability analysis, by adopting stochastic fields with correlation
lengths of 50 m and 5 m, corresponding respectively to spatial correlation length of soil aggressiveness and welded joint mechanical
properties. Fig. 8a–c illustrates the failure probability evolution in time of different welded joint zones after each repair as well as the
system failure probability after original welding. A first approach assuming that welded joint is a base metal continuum is presented
in Fig. 8a; the second approach which considers different strengths in welded joint is illustrated in Fig. 8b and c, where the Fig. 8b
considers all zones (BM + HAZ + WM), and Fig. 8c considers only weld metal (WM).
Different obtained curves provide a clear presentation of pipe failure nominal risk for different welded joint areas. As expected,
the base metal is less reliable than the welded joint. For example, after 25 service years, the system failure probability is estimated at

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Fig. 7. Flowchart for computing the pipe failure probability.

Table 2
Input data of the pipeline.
Variable Symbol Mean value Coefficient of variation

Diameter D (mm) 1066.8 0.05

Wall thickness t (mm) 12.9 0.03
Service pressure Pa(Mpa) 8.5 0.15
Corrosion rate K 0.164 0.016
Corrosion parameter N 0.78 –
Localized corrosionlength-to-depth ratio of γ 10 0.2

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

Table 3
Hv10 hardness values of X70 tested pipe.
Zones Weld Mean (MPa) C.V

BM + HAZ + WM Original weld 217.56 0.033

1st repair 210.56 0.06
2sd repair 205.5 0.065
3rd repair 208.13 0.07

WM Original weld 221 0.03

1st repair 201 0.08
2sd repair 198 0.1
3rd repair 199 0.12

(a)
1.00E+00

1.00E-01
probability of failure

1.00E-02

Orig. Welding
1.00E-03
1st repair

1.00E-04 2nd repair

Base Metal 3rd Repair
1.00E-05
25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

(b) (c)
1.00E+00 1.00E+00

1.00E-01 1.00E-01
probability of failure

probability of failure

1.00E-02 1.00E-02
Orig. Welding
1.00E-03 Orig. Welding
1st Repair 1.00E-03
1st Repair
2nd Repair
1.00E-04
BM+HAZ+WM 1.00E-04 2nd Repair
3rd Repair
Weld Metal 3rd Repair
1.00E-05
25 30 35 40 45 50 1.00E-05
Time (years) 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

Fig. 8. Successive repair effect on the system failure probability for each weld sub-zones.

10-4 considering welding joint, however, the system failure probability is about 10-3 considering only base metal. In Fig. 8a–c it can
be observed a significant effect of successive repairs on corroded pipeline reliability at different welded sub-zones.
Furthermore, it seems that all repairs reduce the system reliability, especially the first repair which can be explained by me-
chanical properties variability at welded joint due to considerable temperature contribution through thermal welding cycles, where it
can be also observed stability in this variability after the first repair.
By comparing all presented Fig. 8a–c, it can be renowned that repair effect is more notable in weld metal (Fig. 8c) compared to
other cases, which can be explained by the measurements dispersion increasing due to removing and adding of metal after a located
repair on weld metal upper portion.

4.2. Correlation length effect

At this stage of study, only the second approach is considered according to the hypothesis which supposes that strength at welded
joint is different than constrain at base metal, where the weld joint contains various sub-zones (BM + HAZ + WM). The hardness
value in this case is obtained by the average of the hardness values in the above three welding sub-zones. The influence of the
mechanical properties correlation length on the system reliability is investigated in conjunction with the successive repairs effect. To
show the impact of this correlation length on the failure probability of the system, different lengths have been considered:
lcHardness = 1 m, 5 m and 10 m. The results are shown in Fig. 9 for the case of automatic welding (without repair) and three successive

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

1.00E+00

1.00E-01

probability of failure
1.00E-02

Orig. Welding
1.00E-03
1st Repair
1.00E-04 2nd Repair
lchardness=1m 3rd Repair
1.00E-05
25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

(a)
1.00E+00 1.00E+00

1.00E-01 1.00E-01
probability of failure

probability of failure
1.00E-02 1.00E-02
Orig. Welding
1.00E-03 Orig. Welding
1st Repair 1.00E-03
1st repair
2nd Repair
1.00E-04
lchardness=5m 1.00E-04 2nd repair
3rd Repair
1.00E-05 lchardness=10m 3rd Repair
25 30 35 40 45 50 1.00E-05
Time (years) 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

(b) (c)
Fig. 9. Successive repairs effect on the system failure probability in terms of mechanical properties correlation length.

repairs. In all cases, the pipeline failure probability increases with the correlation length at the early stage of life, and decreases in the
late stages of life. Taking the case of first repair as an example, at 25 years of service, the failure probability increases from 8.10-5 to
3.10-4, when the correlation length expands from 1 m to 10 m, and decreases from 0.53 to 0.4 at 50 years of service.
By observing the curves presented in Fig. 9a–c, one can also see that the successive repair effect depends on the spatial variability
of mechanical properties. For example, the differences between the pipe failure probabilities after the successive repairs are sig-
nificant for weakly correlation field (i.e. low correlation lengths). On the other hand, such differences are negligible for highly
dependence or highly correlation field (i.e. high correlation lengths). In other words, the repair effect increases with spatial varia-
bility of mechanical properties, especially for low correlation length, and this sensitivity decreases for highly correlated field.
As a conclusion, the obtained results confirm the fact that ignoring the effect of the spatial variability leads to over-penalizing
estimation of the lifetime and consequently to lowering the operating conditions or can lead to prematurely stopping or replacing the
pipeline.

4.3. Gas pressure effect

The effect of successive repairs on the failure probability of pipeline is carried out using three operating pressure values: 8 MPa,
8.5 MPa and 9 MPa. As it depicted in Fig. 10, the time evolution of the pipeline failure probability has been shown under the effect of
successive repairs: 1st repair, 2nd repair and 3rd repair, where the respectively obtained results were compared to the original
welding (without repair).
From the presented results it can be seen that the pipeline failure probability is increasingly affected by increasing the operating
pressure. Furthermore, a proportional relationship is clearly shown between the repair effect and the failure probability of pipeline
over its lifetime. Probability of failure more then 10-3 in the 3rd repair case under 9 MPa service pressure is observed, although a
lower value of failure probability was found when the service pressure is 8.5 MPa explaining the weak repair effect compared with
the previous case, derived from the attainment of ligament instability defined in terms of the pipeline failure equation. In contrast to
the instability analysis for correlation length effect demonstrated previously, the service pressures for the pipe exhibit significant
effect on the failure probability of the pipeline integrity.

5. Conclusion

The welded joint repair effects have been studied for evaluating the relaibility of X70 type buried pipeline considering the
hardness spatial variability and soil agressevness. Monte Carlo simulation is applied for estimating the system failure probability. In
the presented work, the experimental part reveal a less significant alteration of repair on measurments averages. Howover, the

11
Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

1.00E+00

1.00E-01

probability of failure
1.00E-02

Orig. Welding
1.00E-03
1st repair

1.00E-04 2nd repair

Pa=8 MPa 3rd Repair
1.00E-05
25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

(a)
1.00E+00 1.00E+00

1.00E-01 1.00E-01
probability of failure

probability of failure
1.00E-02 1.00E-02
Orig. Welding
1.00E-03 1st Repair Orig. Welding
1.00E-03
2nd Repair 1st Repair
1.00E-04
Pa=8.5 MPa 3rd Repair 1.00E-04 2nd Repair
1.00E-05
Pa=9 MPa 3rd Repair
25 30 35 40 45 50 1.00E-05
Time (years) 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (years)

(b) (c)
Fig. 10. Successive repairs under various service pressure.

notable effect remains in relation to the disperssion and the coefficient of the hardness variation. By considering the obtained results
and the hardness conversion procedure which carried out as a part of this study, a significant effect of welded joint repair on the aging
corroded pipeline was found specially on the first repair. This work can be summarized as following:

- An experimental study was carried out on X70 pipe type, having undergone a successive repairs series aiming to measure different
sub-zones hardness where the yield strength and hardness after each repair have been correlated statistically and coupled with a
corrosion model.
- The failure probabilities in various weld sub-zones are computed by Monte Carlo method considering hardness spatial variability
and soil aggressiveness which were modeled as a correlated stochastic fields using Karhunen-Loeve expansion.
- A notable low reliability was found in the base metal compared with the welded joint, it was also observed a significant effect of
successive repairs on corroded pipeline reliability at different welded sub-zones.
- The proposed procedure allows us to highlight the repairs effect on corroded pipeline reliability, where this effect increases with
spatial variability of mechanical properties, especially for low correlation length, and this sensitivity decreases for highly cor-
related field.

The formulations presented in this paper may be used to develop an optimal maintenance and inspection strategy for welded
joints.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to express their greatest gratitude to the Algerian General Direction of Scientific Research and
Technological Development for supporting this project (A01L09UN410120200001) without forgetting ALFAPIPE company people for
the materials and mechanical testing.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfailanal.2020.104854.

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Y. Sahraoui, et al. Engineering Failure Analysis 118 (2020) 104854

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