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OAJRC Material Science

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Article Open Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/oajrcms.2022.02.001

Failure of a Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline—Material or Sabotage

Muhammad Mansoor1,*, Noveed Ejaz1, Amjad Ali1, Khalid Mehmood Ghauri2, Gul Hameed Awan3

1Department of Materials, Institute of Industrial Control Systems, Rawalpindi, Punjab province, Pakistan.

2Department of Materials, University of Lahore, Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan.

3Department of Materials, University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan.

*Corresponding author: Muhammad Mansoor

Published: December 18,2022

Abstract

A catastrophic failure of gas transmission line resulted in disruption of the gas supply to power generation plant. The pipe material was subjected to initial investigations including chemical analysis, hardness testing and tensile testing, which ruled out the failure due to the material degradation. Multiple, randomly oriented failure origins on outer surface of the pipe indicated some external cause(s) of the failure. Therefore, deposits and debris located at and around the fracture regions were carefully collected for detailed examination. The investigation findings were clearly indicating the intentional breach of pipe integrity. The major evidences included: i) presence of “explosive compound traces” as indicated by Fourier Transform Infrared spectrums of sand/deposits on the fracture origins; ii) the evidence of “Aluminum” on fracture sur-faces; and iii) heavily deformed pipe walls and severely disintegrated fragments/debris having regions of localized melting/fusion. The usage of explosive was suspected to sabotage the pipeline operation.

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How to cite this paper

Failure of a Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline—Material or Sabotage

How to cite this paper: Muhammad Mansoor, Noveed Ejaz, Amjad Ali, Khalid Mehmood Ghauri, Gul Hameed Awan. (2022) Failure of a Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline—Material or Sabotage. OAJRC Material Science4(1), 1-11.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/oajrcems.2022.02.001