Assessment method for gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline networks considering failure and repair

Pipeline networks are the primary means of natural gas transmission, and assessing the gas supply reliability is of great significance for the safe and stable operation of pipeline networks. However, current assessment researches for the gas supply reliability are just conducted on the entire pipeline networks and based on the failed pipeline networks, i.e. the assessment process is static. The individual difference differences among users and the reparability of pipeline networks are neglected, which make the assessment results not comprehensive and objective enough. To address these problems, a new assessment index is defined to assess the gas supply reliability of individual users by combining the gas shortage time and severity in this paper, and the gas supply reliability assessment is carried out from the perspectives of entire pipeline networks, individual users, gas shortage amount and gas shortage time. Furthermore, an operation state determination model of pipeline networks is established based on the failure and repair processes. Finally, a systematic assessment method with dynamic characteristics is proposed. By using the assessment method, the gas supply reliability of an actual pipeline network is assessed. The differences between the assessment of entire pipeline network and individual users are compared, and the importance ranking of components is presented. The assessment results can provide a theoretical basis for an economical optimization of the gas supply reliability of pipeline networks.