Session: CS-02-01 Hydrogen Effects on Material Behavior for Structural Integrity Assessment-Assessment of Pipelines

Paper Number: 125226

125226 - Utilizing Probabilistic Analyses to Explore Performance Margins of Natural Gas Infrastructure for the Transport and Delivery of Hydrogen and Hydrogen Blends 

Gaseous hydrogen is known to embrittle most steels, including the steels used in natural gas pipelines. As injection of hydrogen into the existing natural gas infrastructure is considered globally by the pipeline industry, the structural integrity of pipelines transporting gaseous hydrogen must be investigated. Hydrogen Extremely Low Probability of Rupture (HELPR) is a publicly available and open-source probabilistic fatigue and fracture mechanics toolkit recently developed at Sandia National Laboratories. HELPR is intended to incorporate the influence of hydrogen on structural integrity assessments of natural gas transmission and distribution infrastructure. HELPR utilizes engineering models, such as those specified in ASME B31.12 and API 579, with relatively low computational costs to perform large sample ensembles, enabling estimation of performance distributions including low probability tail estimates. Levering the probabilistic capabilities built into HELPR, the sensitivity of fatigue and fracture calculations to specific modeling parameters on performance margins can be quantified. Through applying HELPR’s probabilistic capabilities to realistic scenarios, the impact of uncertainty in specific model parameter descriptions on performance margins, such as cycles to unstable crack growth or rupture in gaseous hydrogen, can be characterized; this same approach can then be used to assess the impact of reducing uncertainty sources on the resulting performance metrics and margins. A few industry motivated case studies are used to demonstrate this approach.

Presenting Author: Benjamin Schroeder Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Benjamin Schroeder is a Computer Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in the Verification, Validation, Uncertainty Quantification, and Credibility Processes Department. He contributes to a variety of risk assessment projects for emerging energy infrastructure through the development of supporting software, performing quantitative risk analyses, and reviewing applicable safety regulations, codes, and standards. Applications his work supports include hydrogen blending into pipelines, hydrogen powered rail, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen safety codes and standards development.

Authors:

Benjamin Schroeder Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico
Chris San Marchi Sandia National Laboratories, California
Joseph Ronevich Sandia National Laboratories, California
Michael Devin Sandia National Laboratories
Joshua Duell Williams
Steve Potts Williams