ABSTRACT

Life time management and life cycle extension of different structures is one of the most important technical-economic problems nowadays. High pressure, hydro-carbon transporting pipelines have strategic importance, accordingly, their safe and practically fail-safe operation is elemental economic interest. For the developing both an Integrity Management Plan or a Pipeline Integrity Management System, different data, frequently experimental data should be collected and evaluated. The purpose of the paper is to present the role of external reinforcing technics on the life cycle extension of damaged transporting steel pipelines, based on full scale tests. Externally reinforced seamless and seam welded steel pipeline sections were investigated; fatigue and burst tests were executed. Different fiber reinforced polymer matrix composite wrap systems were used; both separate and interacting metal loss defects were investigated. Safety factor was calculated after the investigations, which is applicable for the assessment of the effectiveness of the different reinforcing systems, furthermore for the ranking of these systems.