Here’s a advance draft of an article to be included in an upcoming ASME textbook. Geohaz Essay ASME wkm Rev C
Results for Exposure
A measure of the aggressiveness of the unmitigated failure mechanism
The Essential Elements of Pipeline Risk Assessment
Here’s an update to the original 2012 article introducing the essential elements of pipeline risk assessment. Little has changed–the originally introduced elements seem to be robust and comprehensive, as suggested by having weathered a few years of scrutiny now. PIN_March_2018_Kent_Muhlbauer
Can you explain more about Geohazards and Weather-Related Outside Forces?
Geohazards and Weather-Related Outside Force The threat category ‘Outside Force’ in a risk assessment typically includes forces such as ground/earth movement, flooding, cold weather, and lightning. When buried pipelines cross sloping terrain, there is a danger that soil movement (down the slope) will impose an excessive load on the pipe that could lead to failure. […]
How do we Assess for Geohazards?
Many miles of pipeline around the world are subject to damage from geohazards. As used here, ‘geohazard’ refers to any earth movements sufficient to damage a pipeline, and can also include weather- and water-related events that are potentially damaging. So, we often group, under the heading ‘geohazard’, a wide range of phenomena such as: landslide […]
Facilities / tanks / pumps / compressors / appurtenances / etc, General, Modeling, Risk Assessment, Risk Assessment Methodologies
Pipeline Risk Assessment
Risk assessment on any facility is most efficiently done by first dividing the facility into components with unchanging risk characteristics. For a cross-country pipeline, this involves collecting data on all portions of the pipeline and its surroundings and then using this data to ‘dynamically segment’ the pipeline into segments of varying length. Risk algorithms are […]
The Test of Time Estimation of Exposure
In the absence of more compelling evidence, an appropriate starting point for the exposure estimation may be the fact that a component or collection of components has not failed after x years in service. This involves the notion of having ‘withstood the test of time’. A component having survived a threat, especially for many years, […]
Damage vs failure: a risk assessment needs to know the difference
To measure resistance in a way most useful to a risk assessment, we must estimate the possible presence of weaknesses, the rate of emergence of future weaknesses, and the role of each weakness in strength reduction. By W. Kent Muhlbauer, WKM Consulting, Austin, TX, USA Since several of our recent columns have dealt with management-of-risk […]
Certifications: The Leaning Tree Incident
An operator recently experienced damage to their pipeline when a metal pipeline marker post was driven into the ground by a falling tree – the ‘leaning tree incident’. This is certainly not a common pipeline failure scenario. How much criticism against a risk assessment is warranted if this obscure event is missed? CERTIFICATION With growth in both the number of […]
Download RA certification test data
[sdm-download id=”311″ fancy=”0″ button_text=”Click here to download the spreadsheet”]
Measuring Failure Potential—What is Attacking?
How Effective are Defenses? Can it Survive? In several previous columns, we have noted the need for a very specific approach to measuring failure probability (PoF). Three factors must be independently measured/estimated in order to fully understand PoF. Let’s explore those factors a bit deeper here. Regardless of the definition of ‘failure’ being used, failure […]