Exchange-risk: experimental & computational hybrid assessment of natural gas pipelines exposed to seismic risk

Historically, a number of major catastrophic earthquakes have resulted in a real loss of life and property world-wide. During the last decades, in particular, the overall exposure to seismic risk has increased not only due to the higher population density but also due to the more challenging construction methods and the multilayered connection between the various urban socio-economic activities. Within this complex built environment, the energy transportation systems, despite their structural simplicity, are seemingly one of the weakest links in terms of seismic safety. Currently, energy production, preservation and safe transportation is one of the top priorities. This demands the need to eliminate the probability of occurrence of a potential seismically induced failure (i.e., related to explosion, fire, leakage etc) that would not only have devastating environmental impact in the affected areas, but could also cause operation disruptions with equally significant socio-economic consequences throughout Europe. EXCHANGE-Risk is an Intersectoral/International, Research and Innovation transfer scheme between academia and the industry in Europe and North America focusing on mitigating Seismic Risk of buried steel pipeline Networks subjected to ground-imposed permanent and co-seismic deformations. This paper discusses the challenges addressed by EXCHANGE-Risk and the recent advancements made in this topic. It also paves the road for further discussion on the methodologies, experiments and tools that need to be developed to mitigate seismic risk of natural gas pipelines at a European level and beyond.