• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.20-26
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• 2009

The dominant incidents category for onshore and offshore natural gas transmission pipelines in the world is associated with outside forces. Incidents in the outside forces category embrace acts of nature, which typically cause widespread structural damage, as well as act of man, whose effects tend to cause dents and/or gouges localized at point of contact that are referred to as mechanical damage. Therefore, these damage types must be better addressed to avoid unnecessary and costly repairs and the possibility of catastrophic events. First of all, the characterizing features of mechanical damage in gas pipelines were evaluated by using of excavator or boring machine. There is no reliable method for evaluating the safe operating pressure of pipeline affected by mechanical damage. It is especially important to evaluate the remaining strength of damaged pipelines due to outside force. Therefore, the full scale burst tests were conducted to evaluate the remaining strength of pipe with mechanical damage that combines a dent and a gouge. This paper is supposed to provide information that will assist in developing a criterion to assess serviceability in pipelines with mechanical damage.