Pipeline Modeling using UAV LiDAR Technology

The development and management of green open spaces are essential in overcoming environmental problems such as air pollution and urban warming. 3D modeling and biomass calculation are the example efforts in managing green open spaces. In this study, 3D modeling was carried out on point clouds data acquired by the UAV photogrammetry and UAV LiDAR methods. 3D modeling is done explicitly using the point clouds fitting method. This study uses three fitting methods: the spherical fitting method, the ellipsoid fitting method, and the spherical harmonics fitting method. The spherical harmonics fitting method provides the best results and produces an R2 value between 0.324 to 0.945. In this study, Above-Ground Biomass (AGB) calculations were also carried out from the modeling results using three methods with UAV LiDAR and Photogrammetry data. AGB calculation using UAV LiDAR data gives better results than using photogrammetric data. AGB calculation using UAV LiDAR data gives an accuracy of 78% of the field validation results. However, for visualization purposes with a not-too-wide area, a 3D model of photogrammetric data using the spherical harmonics method can be used.

The performance of urban drainage systems can be significantly compromised by siltation in pipeline networks. This study focuses on the drainage network of central Zhengzhou, analyzing operational risks under current siltation conditions. Using complex network theory, the study examines the structural characteristics and propagation mechanisms of the siltation propagation chain, quantifying node risks through indicators such as pipeline risk factors and degree centrality. Edge vulnerability is incorporated to evaluate the risk values of siltation propagation paths. The study’s findings indicate the following: (1) Despite a relatively low overall siltation risk, regular pipeline inspection and maintenance is necessary. (2) A total of 22 critical nodes, primarily located in main pipelines or confluence manholes, exhibit high risk and require priority attention. (3) Siltation propagation shows significant chain characteristics, with main pipeline and junction node failures potentially leading to systemic crises. In the central Zhengzhou stormwater network presented in this paper, high-risk factors are concentrated in a southern downstream outlet caused by an edge identified as critical that propagates siltation risks to the downstream nodes, forming a long path with elevated risk levels. This study provides crucial insights into the risk management and prevention of sedimentation and blockages in urban drainage networks, not only offering important technical references and a solid scientific basis for pipeline maintenance and network upgrades—thereby contributing to drainage system planning and the enhancement of urban flood protection capabilities—but also serving as a valuable technical reference for improving the overall resilience and operational efficiency of drainage systems.

Both UAV photogrammetry and lidar have become common in deriv- ing three-dimensional models of urban scenes, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, the fusion of these multi- source data is still challenging, in which registration is one of the most important stages. In this paper, we propose a method of coarse point cloud registration which consists of two steps. The first step is to extract urban building facades in both an oblique photogram- metric point cloud and a lidar point cloud. The second step is to align the two point clouds using the extracted building facades. Object Vicinity Distribution Feature (Dijkman and Van Den Heuvel 2002) is introduced to describe the distribution of building facades and register the two heterologous point clouds. This method provides a good initial state for later refined registration process and is transla - tion, rotation, and scale invariant. Experiment results show that the accuracy of this proposed automatic registration method is equiva- lent to the accuracy of manual registration with control points.

Using the method of statistical modeling of pipeline reliability, the statistical model for forecasting the dependence of the failure parameter of pipelines of main heating networks on the service life and diameter was developed and analyzed. This method includes two techniques. The first allows to obtain predictive dependences of pipeline reliability indicators for systems that include sections of different diameters with different service life periods and actual data on damage over several years. The second increases the correctness of the obtained dependences by optimizing the service life step in the study of damage to heat pipes. As a result of the study, the dependence of the reliability of main pipelines on the service life and diameter was established. The condition and forecast values of the specified indicator of reliability of main heat pipelines, and also dynamics and range of its changes are defined. The average value of the failure rate parameter increases from 0.23 1/km year (diameter 300 mm) to 0.62 1/km year (diameter 800 mm), which is 2.7 times larger than the pipes with the diameter 300 mm. The multiplicity of changes in the value of the parameter of the flow of failures was also established in accordance with the change in the diameter of the pipelines. According to the developed statistical model the dependence for calculation of the forecast of quantity of damages of the main heat pipelines according to their service life, diameter and length is established. This will increase the reliability of heating systems and effectively plan the cost of material, technical and labor resources. The given method can be used to assess the forecast of the reliability of pipelines, respectively, of their diameters for other engineering systems and networks

Main steam pipelines are important components of power plants and chemical plants, which operated at elevated temperature and high pressure for the long term. Creep is a potential mechanism of failure of these pipelines. In this paper, the modified Karchanov-Rabotnov creep damage constitutive equation has been incorporated into finite element program ABAQUS through its user subroutine to predict the creep damage and service life of a serviced steam pipeline made of 10CrMo910 heat resistance steel. Creep tests and short-term tensile tests at serviced temperature of 540°C were carried out to get the material constants in creep damage constitutive equation, which are necessary in the mentioned creep damage and life prediction. Based on these, the analysis on stress and damage of a main steam pipeline serviced for 150,000 hrs was carried out. Stress and damage distribution and maximum damage location of the pipeline were obtained. The damage distribution and maximum damage location of the pipelines were obtained. Furthermore, the local creep damage analysis of a T-type joint serviced for 150,000 hrs was also carried out because T-type joint used in the main steam pipeline is one of weakness in the piping system. According to the results obtained above, the life evaluation of the pipeline and the T-type joint were performed.

Accurate, photorealistic, and operationally actionable 3D campus mapping is a key enabler for smart educational environments, which refers to digitally enabled campuses that integrate spatial data to support navigation, facility management, and infrastructure monitoring. This paper presents an end-to-end, replicable UAV workflow that combines RGB photogrammetry from multi-view imagery and UAV LiDAR point clouds to construct a high-fidelity 3D campus model of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) as a case study. Data were collected using a DJI Matrice 300 RTK equipped with a Zenmuse P1 (45 MP) camera and Zenmuse L2 LiDAR payload, with nadir grid flights (80%/70% overlap) and oblique orbits (~ 45°) at 60m altitude (RGB GSD ≈ 2.5cm/pixel; LiDAR mean spacing ≈ 5cm). LiDAR scans were georeferenced and cleaned, then co-registered with the photogrammetric reconstruction in a common RTK frame. To improve visual realism without altering metric geometry, a lightweight 2× U-Net super-resolution module (U-NetSR) was applied only to the RGB textures used for mesh texturing. Experiments show that combining nadir and oblique views improves facade completeness and reduces surface deviation by ~ 30% relative to nadir-only acquisition, while super-resolved textures increase SSIM (0.88→0.93) and edge sharpness (~ 28%) at a modest post-processing cost. Finally, the model is exported to a WebGIS environment for interactive 3D exploration and campus-operations integration.

A multi-objective model for optimizing hydrogen injected-high pressure natural gas pipeline networks

Background Oil leaks from pipelines, including unauthorized cut-ins, cause substantial economic and ecological damage during operation of the Russian oil pipelines. Published materials demonstrate continual growth of the damage. Numerous methods have been developed to determine coordinates of leaks and cut-ins. The methods are based on using various physical laws and phenomena and differ in their sensitivity to noise, noise immunity, dependence on the natural factors, speed and accuracy of determining coordinates of leaks and cut-ins. Yet, neither of these methods solves the problem of locating the pipeline damage in real time. The methods also differ in the frequency range of received and processed sound vibrations – low-frequency infrasonic and high-frequency. Infrasonic detection systems seem to be most promising, where the signal detection and propagation distance are considered. Aims and Objectives Math modeling of a dampening infrasonic signal and evaluating the accuracy of detecting coordinates of leakages, caused by authorized/unauthorized cut-in or corrosion of the main oil pipeline, where the signal is disturbed by noises of different intensity and the parameters of the signal math model are unknown. Methods Speed and accuracy of locating the source of the signal may be determined by two methods: a) evaluation of the moment of the first entrance of and signals into П 1 and П 2 receivers by calculating spectral density of energy and/or dispersion of the signal in the given «sliding window»; b) evaluation (making precise) of the time lag of one signal in relation to the other signal by finding the maximum mutual correlation function of spectral density of the compared signal energy, which allow to exclude the influence of signal damping on the accuracy of evaluating . Results Accuracy of evaluating the time lag of one signal in relation to the other signal is studied on the base of the developed math model of damping infrasonic vibrations generated by a source and received by two receivers with some delay. It is demonstrated that the accuracy depends both on the relative position of the signal source and the receivers, and on the signal/noise relation. Signal model and methods of signal processing allow to select monitoring system parameters (coordinates of receivers), that ensure the highest accuracy of evaluating the time lag . Conclusion It is studied whether math models of damping infrasonic vibrations generated by certain resources can be used for designing oil pipeline monitoring systems, which determine the coordinates of the signal generating source.

Optimization is a continuous work in oil and gas operation in every section by maximizing the profit and minimizing cost. One of the sections that can be optimized is production system, starting from the wellbore to separator through pipeline network. Simulation are made and conducted from reservoir to separator to see the pressure distribution along the pipeline with various diameter. The result will be subject to be optimized by putting pipeline cost into account. The simulation result shows that at some point, increasing in diameter has a good effect to the revenue thanks to the increasing production rate, but it also shows that the increasing diameter in all section is not always the best scenario due to high cost. Benefit-to-cost ratio is chosen to be the economical parameter to find the best diameter configuration.

Ageing of pipeline networks is of major concern to Oil & Gas operators who need to ensure safe operation, avoidance of environmental pollution, and fitness for purpose of major producing assets. In this context, corrosion control is one of the major challenges that they are faced with on existing pipeline networks. This paper describes a semi-quantitative methodology for assessing the corrosion likelihood of existing production pipelines which was developed by the Company and applied over its worldwide operations. In order to be of any real value, it has to be considered necessary that this corrosion evaluation had to: Be consistent across the entire network (even worldwide),Deal with past and present corrosive conditions seen by each pipeline,Consider the efficiency of mitigation actions,Take into account available inspection data, or deal with the non-availability of said data This methodology is apparently less formal than the use of fully quantitative mechanistic models. However, it is believed to result in a higher degree of confidence as it better covers than any tool: The wide variety of corrosion and corrosion control events,And the variability of service conditions,that any pipeline experiences over its whole life time. It also places the direct accountability of the evaluation on people in charge, not on models.

Finite element modeling of buried liquid-conveying pipeline for the calculation of fluid structure interaction is the key to analyze the damage of long distance buried liquid-conveying pipeline. Because the influence of site, fault movement, and earthquake, etc. it is necessary to calculate fluid-structure interaction (FSI) in finite element analysis under pipe-soil interaction. Finite element model of buried liquid-conveying pipeline for the calculation of fluid structure interaction is constructed through combination of ADINA-parasolid and ADINA-native modeling methods, and the direct computing method of two-way fluid-structure coupling is introduced. Pipe-soil friction is defined in solid model, special flow assumption and fluid structure interface condition are defined in fluid model. Damage of buried liquid-conveying pipeline is investigated through computing of fluid-structure coupling. Results are analyzed, and some advice is proposed.

Abstract. Airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) measurements carried out in the southern Sierra Nevada in 2010 in the snow-free and peak-snow-accumulation periods were analyzed for topographic and vegetation effects on snow accumulation. Point-cloud data were processed from four primarily mixed-conifer forest sites covering the main snow-accumulation zone, with a total surveyed area of over 106 km2. The percentage of pixels with at least one snow-depth measurement was observed to increase from 65–90 to 99 % as the sampling resolution of the lidar point cloud was increased from 1 to 5 m. However, a coarser resolution risks undersampling the under-canopy snow relative to snow in open areas and was estimated to result in at least a 10 cm overestimate of snow depth over the main snow-accumulation region between 2000 and 3000 m, where 28 % of the area had no measurements. Analysis of the 1 m gridded data showed consistent patterns across the four sites, dominated by orographic effects on precipitation. Elevation explained 43 % of snow-depth variability, with slope, aspect and canopy penetration fraction explaining another 14 % over the elevation range of 1500–3300 m. The relative importance of the four variables varied with elevation and canopy cover, but all were statistically significant over the area studied. The difference between mean snow depth in open versus under-canopy areas increased with elevation in the rain–snow transition zone (1500–1800 m) and was about 35 ± 10 cm above 1800 m. Lidar has the potential to transform estimation of snow depth across mountain basins, and including local canopy effects is both feasible and important for accurate assessments.

Continental Shelf Associates, Inc. (CSA) was contracted to conduct a three-year study of the environmental and health related impacts of produced water and sand discharges from oil and gas operations. Data on naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), heavy metals, and hydrocarbons in water, sediment, and biota will be collected and evaluated. Health related impacts will be studied through field collections and analyses of commercially- and recreationally-important fish and shellfish tissues. Additionally, information on seafood catch, consumption, and use patterns for the Gulf of Mexico will be gathered and analyzed. The facilities to be studied will include both offshore and coastal facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Coastal sites will be additionally studied to determine ecological recovery of impacted wetland and open bay areas. The economic impact of existing and proposed effluent federal and state regulations will also be evaluated. This report represents the thirteenth quarterly technical summary for the study ``Environmental and Economic Assessment of Discharges from Gulf of Mexico Region Oil and Gas Operations.`` Activities associated with Tasks 3 through 8 are discussed in this report.

The Abu Dhabi EPRS Club, which is composed of major UAE operators (ADNOC OFFSHORE, ADNOC ONSHORE, ADOC, BUNDUQ) that manage over 7000Km of critical pipeline assets in the region, relies on Emergency Pipeline Repair Service (EPRS) as a contingency measure. EPRS is a service that is established to intervene at short notice and to address any incident or damage sustained on subsea pipeline and cable assets that may affect the production and transportation of hydrocarbons. This service covers the ADNOC Offshore pipeline network of over 540 individual pipelines (>5000Km) with varying sizes from 4″-48″ that transport Oil, Gas & water from offshore fields to onshore facilities. The EPRS Club aims to ensure the safety and reliability of the pipeline infrastructure and to minimize the environmental and economic impacts of any potential pipeline failure.

The authors explore the topic of operation of main oil pipelines, complicated by the formation and settling of asphalt, resin, and paraffin deposits (wax deposits). It is known that the fallout of paraffin deteriorates the technological characteristics of the pipeline, which has a number of negative consequences from an economic point of view: a decrease in income due to a narrowing of the flow area and the volume of pumped oil, an increase in costs due to the increased load on main pumps. Today, there are many different ways to combat wax deposits, primarily aimed at preventing the fallout or removing formed deposits from the internal surface of an oil pipeline, the effectiveness of which is determined individually for each pipeline due to the complexity in assessing the influence of the rheological characteristics of oil and the geological conditions of the pipeline on the effectiveness of the methods. One of the additional and universal options for combating wax deposits is the use of internal and external protective coatings.The authors have developed a number of models of oil pipelines that use oils from various oil and gas basins, differing in paraffin content, and considering the presence of insulation of various protective coatings (paint and varnish, highly reinforced protective coating (VUS), bitumen-mastic VUS, polyurethane foam) and their combinations. For these models, the Schlumberger OLGA program simulated the operation of the pipeline for 180 days, on the basis of which the maximum thickness of the formed paraffin was estimated, and the specific energy costs for pumping through the pipeline without coating and various types of coating were calculated, after which the calculation was performed main economic indicators of pipeline operation for each option. Based on the calculation results, it was concluded that it is advisable to use one or another coating based on the shortest payback period. This comprehensive assessment demonstrates a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the use of protective coatings from both a technological and economic point of view and allows us to draw conclusions about the possibility of using one or another option based on the results of the study, depending on the composition of the oil.