Application of Kent Muhlbauer Method to Risk Assessment of Urban Gas Pipelines

Abstract

Oil and gas revenues play an important role in the Iranian economy and are the main source of government spending and a major part of commodity exports. Therefore, safe transport of these products by pipelines and risk assessment are of great importance. The objective of this study was to determine the parameters affecting risk, assess the risks of urban gas transmission lines and gas transmission equipment, and identify high-risk areas to prioritize control measures. Risk assessment was performed using the Kent Muhlbauer method on a 19-km pipeline. The studied pipeline was divided into 94 separate sections. To calculate the relative risk, the index sum and leakage impact factor were used. The range of risks was classified into five areas: very high (0–1), high (1–2), medium (2–3), low (3–4), and very low (4–5). The average risk score for all 94 items was 2.92. The results indicated that 58.5% of the risks were moderate. The highest relative risk score was 1.67, whereas the minimum risk score was 4.19. According to the results, focusing on corrosion index and increasing the score of this index can be one of the important priorities for implementing control programs and maintenance measures.