A risk assessment of corrosion in interstate hazardous liquids transmission pipelines

The purpose of this research is to provide an innovative computer-based decision support aid to assess the risks of corrosion in managing interstate hazardous liquid pipelines. A systems dynamics model is constructed to evaluate financial and safety tradeoffs among corrosion risk management policies encompassing corrosion prevention, detection, and repair activities. This research proves the principle of employing the systems dynamics model to manage interstate hazardous liquid pipeline corrosion risks. It is a decision support aid that is sufficiently versatile for use by both the pipeline industry and federal regulators.; This research proposes that federal regulatory collection of interstate hazardous liquids pipelines be significantly revised to include more extensive pipeline failure information in federal failure reports and to implement an annual interstate hazardous liquids pipeline report to characterize the national pipeline system. This research shows that operational use of the systems dynamics model is severely constrained by the lack of sufficiently relevant and detailed failure data. Significant improvements in data collection will lead to continued development of effective quantitative risk management models for industry and government use.