Patent ID: 9182081
Filing Date: 2015-11-10
Classification: F17D

Abstract:
1. A method of evaluating a sufficiency of a number of measurements of an integrity of a pipeline, comprising: receiving sampled measurement data of pipeline wall thickness loss for the pipeline, wherein the sampled measurement data was obtained at a plurality of sample locations along an external surface of the pipeline; identifying a maximum wall thickness loss measurement from the sampled measurement data; identifying in-line inspection measurement data of pipeline wall thickness loss for a plurality of reference pipeline datasets stored in a data library; selecting a subset of the in-line inspection measurement data having maximum wall thickness loss measurements that are greater than a first predetermined value when the maximum wall thickness loss measurement from the sampled measurement data is less than the first predetermined value; calculating differences between a distribution of the sampled measurement data of pipeline wall thickness loss and distributions of the subset of the in-line inspection measurement data of pipeline wall thickness loss; selecting at least a portion of the in-line inspection measurement data from the subset of the in-line inspection measurement data having distributions similar to the distribution of the sampled measurement data of pipeline wall thickness loss, wherein the similarity is determined by comparing the calculated differences; retrieving, from the data library, at least a first statistic for the portion of the in-line inspection measurement data, the first statistic indicating a sample coverage required to accept a first premise regarding an extreme value of wall thickness loss for the pipeline to a specified confidence level; determining, by a computer, from at least the first statistic and the sampled measurement data, a sufficiency of the sampled measurement data to allow a determination of the integrity of the pipeline; acquiring a new set of sample measurements of pipeline wall thickness loss for the pipeline responsive to the determining indicating that the sampled measurement data is insufficient to allow the determination of the integrity of the pipeline, wherein sample coverage for the new set of sample measurements is greater than sample coverage for the sampled measurement data; replacing at least a portion of the pipeline responsive to the determining indicating that the sampled measurement data is sufficient to allow the determination of the integrity of the pipeline.