Likelihood Evaluation of Pipelines Corrosion in the Mexican Soil Assisted by Geographic Information Systems

The new integrity management standard will be operating for main pipelines in Mexico, so  we developed a methodology to achieve that standard.

By the combination of different variables and models of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) we made a geodatabase capable of identifying hot spots for corrosion on pipelines, improving the inspection and maintenance of main lines.

Using multilayer systems from the Mexican Institute of Geography we can visualize the factors affecting the corrosion rate, and by categorizing each of these it’s possible to determine the likelihood of corrosion scales established based on the corrosivity of each.

In order to represent the physical-chemical properties of the soil, these are converted to a raster (data model in which geographic entities are represented by pixels arranged forming a grid, with many bands of data) these allow us to rastercontinuous variables that are visible and manageable mathematically, these raster image represents the point values of porosity, moisture, resistivity, redox-potencial, pH, salinity, temperature and bacteria. At this point we can add the CIS, DCVG, ACVG, ILI and predict the areas where the corrosion rate will be higher. After that we will be able to assess the likelihood of corrosion and HCA, and quantify the risk