Final week, three totally different websites alongside the underwater Nord Stream 1 and a pair of pipelines ruptured and started leaking gasoline. The circumstances at Nord Stream could also be uncommon, however subsea pipeline injury is sort of an on a regular basis prevalence. Corrosion from salt water may cause leaks, and repeatedly, accidents happen because of industrial delivery. Nord Stream’s pipes additionally lie underneath a few of the world’s busiest delivery routes. That’s why pipelines have refined safety measures and restore methods; plans for coping with leaks and accidents are formulated as quickly because the pipelines are constructed. Engineers will observe a set playbook to start repairing the broken sections of Nord Stream as quickly as potential.
Pipelines should resist many threats. The large anchors of enormous container ships or tankers specifically can injury the pipes—as occurred in 2008 with the Kvitebjørn pipeline within the North Sea off the Norwegian coast. Objects falling from boats, reminiscent of containers and even sinking ships themselves, may hit the pipeline. Likewise, erosion and landslides underneath water pose a possible hazard. Because of this, the pipes are protected utilizing totally different strategies, relying on the circumstances and the chance. For instance, they are often surrounded with massive stones to repel anchors, lined with concrete mats or fully buried within the seabed.
Nevertheless, such measures would have been very costly for Nord Stream’s greater than 1,000 kilometers of pipelines. The constructions lie straight on the seabed or, the place it’s not steady or degree sufficient, on a mattress of gravel. They’re solely laid underneath the bottom the place they run nearest to the shore. The pipelines are protected by their 2.7- to 4.1-centimeter-thick metal partitions and a concrete jacket as much as 11 centimeters thick, which additionally serves as further weighting; with out the concrete, the pipeline would merely be too gentle and would float.
Even the opportunity of an explosion close to the pipelines was taken into consideration within the planning of Nord Stream. Numerous bombs from World Struggle II lie within the Baltic Sea to at the present time, so specialists cleared a strip 50 meters huge alongside the pipeline. However currents might additionally carry munitions close to the route, Nord Stream’s danger evaluation warns. Thus, in response to the operator, the pipes have been designed survive a blast of two tons of explosives positioned 12 meters from the pipeline with out leaking.
Regardless of these precautions, one thing has breached the Nord Stream pipeline, though it’s tough to estimate the extent of the present injury. It’s true that pc analyses can be utilized to exactly calculate the situation of the pipeline. To do that, nonetheless, one must know fairly exactly what forces the fabric was subjected to. To this point, the indications—for instance, the dimensions of the gasoline leak—recommend that the large pipes are very badly broken and even fully severed. The extent of the destruction will decide how the pipeline should be repaired. Most pipelines constructed in the present day have a specifically designed “restore technique” in case of injury: at Nord Stream this technique contains 5 totally different situations of various severity, together with an entire rupture of the pipeline, in response to the operators.
If massive explosive expenses have certainly broken the pipeline, as safety officers reportedly suspect, then longer segments of pipeline will doubtless have to be changed in sections. This restore, referred to as a “tie-in,” could be completed in a number of methods. In some circumstances, one inserts the brand new, undamaged pipe phase above the water floor. This was the case, for instance, when an anchor fully severed one line of the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline System and severely broken a second in 2008. The pipeline was at a depth of about 70 meters, just like the depth of a bit of Nord Stream close to the Danish island Bornholm. Due to the comparatively shallow water depth, the broken ends of the pipeline have been lifted above the floor of the water utilizing particular vessels. A brand new phase was then fitted and the joints at each ends have been welded. That is additionally how the workforce of a particular vessel joined the person segments of Nord Stream 2 in 2019.
Nevertheless, it is usually potential to affix the ends of pipeline segments straight underwater—a method that was used for Nord Stream 1. This includes main the ends of the pipeline right into a particular hyperbaric chamber and welding them collectively, a course of referred to as “hyperbaric tie-in.” This system has already been examined at Nord Stream—for instance, in 2011—to attach the person sections of the primary pipeline, every laid down by a unique particular vessel.
There are additionally different, considerably much less complicated, methods of tightly coupling the separated pipe ends with out welding them collectively. One can be part of them utilizing particular flanges, very like extraordinary pipes. Such elements are commercially accessible and could be put in both by divers or by remotely managed underwater automobiles. For example, in repairing the Kvitebjørn pipeline, which lay underneath 210 meters of water, Norwegian state oil firm Statoil reduce out a bit about 25 meters lengthy across the broken space, after which connected the brand new phase utilizing particular sleeve joints. After these are slid over the ends of the pipe, hydraulics are used to seal the joint tightly.
As soon as the pipeline itself has been repaired, it’s essential to pump out the water that has penetrated the tube, dry the within with an air stream and, if essential, renew the corrosion safety. At Nord Stream, this consists of a plastic coating and so-called sacrificial anodes, manufactured from zinc and aluminum, which forestall electrochemical corrosion.
Which expertise will truly be used within the restore of Nord Stream will depend on varied elements, together with the extent of the injury and, importantly, what sort of apparatus is out there. For instance, a key issue within the restore of the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline System above the water’s floor was {that a} appropriate specialised vessel was within the area. How shortly specialised vessels, gear and specialists can be found all assist decide how lengthy it takes to restore the pipelines. In spite of everything, Nord Stream by its personal account has entry to a pool of restore gear shared by a number of pipeline corporations. The extent of injury, water depth and situations on the website of the injury additionally affect how lengthy it might take for pipelines to be operational once more. Within the case of the Kvitebjørn pipeline, repairs took 5 months, whereas the Mediterranean pipeline was operational once more 9 months after the accident. Within the case of Nord Stream, it’s more likely to take even longer due to the bizarre circumstances: a lot about the reason for the injury stays unknown.
That is an opinion and evaluation article, and the views expressed by the creator or authors will not be essentially these of Scientific American.
This text initially appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission