Failure analysis and mechanical performance of an oil pipeline

•This paper presents a work scheme for failure analysis of buried oil pipelines.•The scheme is based on five stages and results are related to each other.•The stages proposed allow identifying basic elements for failure analysis.•The stages can be applied to other phenomena that can make the pipeline fail.

This paper presents a work scheme for failure analysis of buried oil pipelines. The scheme provides answers for two main questions at least: what were the causes that made the system fail and why the system failed in the way it did. The scheme is based on five stages and the results of these stages are related to each other and consistent with the type of failure, thereby providing objective conclusions. The proposed scheme was successfully applied to a case of a buried oil pipeline whose failure was a result of external corrosion. We established the occurrence of accelerated corrosion characterized by two corrosion mechanisms: one involving iron oxides and the other, iron sulfides. Furthermore, the ductile type failure has proved to be due to leakage, which is consistent with the reported evidence.

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