Effects of ice gouging on buried pipelines

北极和北部寒冷地区是少数几个可能拥有大量碳氢化合物储量的前沿地区之一，可以满足全球对能源和石化行业的需求。从油田开发区域到市场的长距离运输，管道仍然是一种经济可靠的石油和天然气产品运输方式。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底相互作用的不确定性，即冰泥事件，以及对埋地管道系统的相应载荷影响。在不造成持续环境影响的情况下，安全推进开发存在技术和后勤方面的挑战，同时需要设计出可行的解决方案，并在技术、经济和后勤限制的限制下实现可预测的结果。这个合作研究项目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。该研究项目将解决冰龙骨和海底土壤的特性如何影响冰凿事件和影响埋地基础设施（如管道）的机械响应的问题。使用实验室测试、全尺寸物理建模和开发先进的计算程序将为解决这些问题提供技术框架。主要目标是推进校准，领先的模拟工具，可以在一系列实际工程设计参数下评估冰泥环境中埋地管道的机械完整性。整合领先和成熟的技术将解决当前的行业挑战，并通过实用、经济、安全的工程解决方案解决阻碍新前沿领域发展的制约因素。该研究成果将为促进安全、可靠和具有成本效益的管道运输系统提供基础，通过为获得战略能源供应提供技术基础，为加拿大提供潜在的经济效益。

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.