On the Safety Assurance of Gas Transmission Pipeline

With the development of gas pipeline construction, the safety assurance of pipeline and its surrounding buildings has provoked great interest. There are two kinds of guiding ideoloies on pipeline safety assurance: ①mode of assurance by safety distance, the principle of which is to specify a proper pipeline strength and to guarantee the safety of pipeline and surrounding buildings mainly by controlling the distances between the buildings and the pipeline based on different pipeline pressures and diameters; ②mode of assurance by safety strength, the principle of which is to specify properly pipeline strength and tightness in the whole course of pipeline design, material and equipment selection, construction, inspection, operation as well as alteration, so as to guarantee the safety of the pipeline system and its surrounding buildings. The first mode which has been im application in China can result in more frequent accidents than the mode of assurance by strenth which is in common use in European and American countries. The author holds that the mode of assurance by strength shall be used in pipeline construction, with steel pipe distributed on the basis of location classes rather than transmission pressures. It is also recommended to make detailed pipeline reliability study for safety assurance, improve pipe quality, stress pipeline corrosion control, adopt advanced automatic supervision and control technology and communication systems, and carry out thorough quality supervision and management in all directions.