Effects of ice gouging on buried pipelines

北极和北方寒冷地区是为数不多的可能拥有大量碳氢化合物储量的前沿地区之一，以满足全球对能源和石化工业的需求。管道仍然是石油和天然气产品从油田开发区到市场的长距离运输方式，具有成本效益和可靠性。对于冰环境中的海上管道，关键的工程挑战涉及冰特征与海床相互作用的不确定性，称为冰凿事件，以及对埋地管道系统的相应载荷效应。技术和后勤方面的挑战是，在不对环境造成持续影响的情况下安全地推进开发，同时满足设计具有可预测结果的实用解决方案的需求，这些解决方案受到技术、经济和后勤方面的限制。这项合作研究计划将学术界和工业界聚集在一起，努力减少这种技术的不确定性和风险。该研究计划将解决有关冰龙骨和海底土壤的性质如何影响冰凿事件和影响管道等地下基础设施的机械响应的问题。利用实验室测试、全尺寸物理模型和开发先进的计算程序将为解决这些问题提供技术框架。其主要目标是推进校准，前沿的模拟工具，可以评估埋地管道的机械完整性，在冰凿环境中的实际工程设计参数的范围。领先和成熟的技术的整合将解决当前的行业挑战，并通过实用，经济高效和安全的工程解决方案解决阻碍新前沿领域发展的限制因素。研究成果将提供一个基础，以促进安全，可靠和具有成本效益的管道运输系统，通过提供技术基础，以获得战略能源供应，加拿大的潜在经济效益。

Arctic and northern cold regions are one of the few remaining frontiers that may hold significant hydrocarbon reserves to meet global demand for energy and petrochemical industries. Pipelines remain a cost effective and reliable transport mode of oil and gas products, from field development areas to market, over extended distances. For offshore pipelines in ice environments, key engineering challenges relate to uncertainty on the interaction of an ice feature with the seabed, known as an ice gouge event, and the corresponding load effects on buried pipeline systems. Technical and logistical challenges exist to progress developments safely with no sustained environmental impact while addressing the need to engineer practical solutions with predictable outcomes bounded by technological, economic and logistical constraints. This collaborative research program brings together academia and industry in an effort to reduce this technical uncertainty and risk. This research program will address questions on how properties of the ice keel and seabed soil influence ice gouge events and affect the mechanical response of buried infrastructure such as pipelines. The use of laboratory testing, full-scale physical modelling and development of advanced computational procedures will provide the technology framework to address these questions. The primary objective is to advance calibrated, leading edge simulation tools that can assess the mechanical integrity of buried pipelines in ice gouge environments over a range of practical engineering design parameters. The integration of leading and proven technologies will address current industry challenges and unlock constraints that hinder development of new frontier areas with practical, cost-effective and safe engineering solutions. The research outcomes will provide a basis to promote safe, reliable and cost effective pipeline transportation systems with potential economic benefits to Canada by providing a technical basis to access strategic energy supplies.