Front.
Energy
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-020-0672-5
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Feng CHEN, Changchun WU
A novel methodology for forecasting gas supply reliability of
natural gas pipeline systems
© Higher Education Press 2020
Abstract In this paper, a novel systematic and integrated
methodology to assess gas supply reliability is proposed
based on the Monte Carlo method, statistical analysis,
mathematical-probabilistic analysis, and hydraulic simula-
tion. The method proposed has two stages. In the first
stage, typical scenarios are determined. In the second
stage, hydraulic simulation is conducted to calculate the
flow rate in each typical scenario. The result of the gas
pipeline system calculated is the average gas supply
reliability in each typical scenario. To verify the feasibility,
the method proposed is applied for a real natural gas
pipelines network system. The comparison of the results
calculated and the actual gas supply reliability based on the
filed data in the evaluation period suggests the assessment
results of the method proposed agree well with the filed
data. Besides, the effect of different components on gas
supply reliability is investigated, and the most critical
component is identified. For example, the 48th unit is the
most critical component for the SH terminal station, while
the 119th typical scenario results in the most severe
consequence which causes the loss of 175.61
104 m3 gas
when the 119th scenario happens. This paper provides a set
of scientific and reasonable gas supply reliability indexes
which can evaluate the gas supply reliability from two
dimensions of quantity and time.
Keywords natural gas pipeline system, gas supply
reliability, evaluation index, Monte Carlo method, hydraulic
simulation
1 Introduction
Natural gas belongs to the main energy resources essential
Received Sept. 12, 2019; accepted Feb. 17, 2020; online May 5, 2020
Feng CHEN, Changchun WU ( ) ✉ structure [16]. Compared to the natural gas pipeline
National Engineering Laboratory for Pipeline Safety, China University
of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
E-mail: wucc@cup.edu.cn
for industry and public [1,2]. The consequence of loss of
gas supply could be catastrophic [3,4]. Therefore, gas
supply reliability is a crucial issue of high concern. The
aim of this paper is to present a common scientific
methodology for the evaluation of gas supply reliability.
Gas supply reliability means the ability that the gas
pipelines system can supply continuous and adequate
amount of gas to users [5]. Different from the structural
integrity of the natural gas pipelines system, the scope of
the gas supply reliability is the satisfaction of natural gas
user’s demand rather than the safety of installed equipment
or the total system [6–8].
To evaluate the gas supply reliability, two major
difficulties should be overcome:
The first difficulty involves the establishment of a
scientific, reasonable, and appropriate evaluation index
system. At present, the reliability evaluation index of
natural gas pipeline system has not yet been widely
recognized [9,10]. In the classical reliability theory, the
reliability of the unit and system is always measured by
these reliability evaluation indexes, such as reliability,
maintainability, and availability [11]. Moreover, the failure
rate, mean time between failure (MTBF), and mean time to
repair (MTTR) are also employed [12]. However, it is hard
for the aforementioned indexes to reflect the security of the
gas supply and the definition of the gas supply reliability
reasonably. For example, based on the classical reliability
theory [13], if all units are in the normal operating states,
the system can be considered to be in the normal operating
state, but this does not mean that the system can safeguard
the sufficient amount of natural gas demand. The reason
for this is that the gas supply reliability is determined by
both the operating status of the system, the hydraulic
characteristics of the system, and the user’s gas demand
[14,15].
The network system gas pipelines is similar to the power
system and water supply system in terms of topological
system, the power system and the water distribution
system are more detailed and comprehensive in the study
2 Front. Energy
of supply reliability. In the power system, Heuberger et al.
[17] proposed a series of quantitative indicators, such as
the interruption frequency index, the interruption duration,
and the unavailability to evaluate the supply reliability. In
the water distribution system, the supply reliability was
proposed to reflect the ability to deliver water to individual
consumers in the quantity and quality required [18].
Reliability indexes, such as time averaged value of the
ratio of the available flow to the required flow [19], the
fraction of delivered volume, the fraction of delivered
demand, and the fraction of the delivered quality [20], are
calculated to measure the supply reliability of the water
distribution system.
However, there exist differences between the gas
pipelines system, the power system, and the water supply
system. First, the transport medium in the power system is
propagated at the speed of light, which is different from the
gas pipeline system where the gas supply speed is much
lower than the speed of light. Second, gas is compressible
and a large amount of natural gas is stored in the pipelines,
which is also referred to as line pack. The existence of a
line pack is one of the most significant differences between
the natural gas transmission pipeline system and other
energy supply systems [7]. Finally, the path redundancy of
the natural gas pipelines network is less than that of the
water and power supply system.
For the natural gas pipeline system, a reliable gas supply
means that enough amount of gas is supplied to the users in
the whole period and the amount of gas supplied to the user
can meet the demand in each moment. Therefore, two core
criteria for a reliable gas supply are the adequate amount of
gas and the in-time supply of gas to users. In this paper, a
set of index which can fully cover these two criteria are be
introduced (Section 2).
The second difficulty is the calculation method for gas
supply reliability indexes. Gas supply reliability is
determined by the operating status of the system, the
hydraulic characteristics of the system, and the user’s gas
demand [21,22]. Therefore, it is necessary to employ
hydraulic simulation under various operating conditions
when calculating the gas supply reliability [8,14] to
consider the hydraulic characteristics of the natural gas
pipeline system. However, most existing methods ignore
the hydraulic characteristics of the gas pipeline system
when calculating the gas supply reliability. For example,
the maximum flow algorithm was employed in Refs.
[9,23,24] and the linear programming model was used in
Refs. [25–27] to calculate the flow rate when assessing the
gas supply reliability. In Refs. [28,29], the Monte Carlo
based approaches were proposed to assess the ability of
European natural gas pipeline network to meet the market
demand under different demand and operating conditions.
Moreover, in order to calculate the flow rate, the relation-
ship between flow and pressure of the water supply system
and the steady hydraulic simulation of the natural gas
pipeline system was utilized in Ref. [30] and Ref. [16],
respectively. In addition, ecological network analysis
(ENA) was adopted in Refs. [31,32] to simulate the
natural gas supply system in China, and thus the gas supply
security was evaluated. Unfortunately, the aforementioned
methods are not suitable for the natural gas pipeline system
because the hydraulic characteristics of the gas pipeline
system, especially the effect of the line pack caused by the
compressibility of natural gas, are not considered.
Actually, the existence of a line pack is one of the most
significant differences between the natural gas pipeline
system and other energy supply systems [33,34]. Ignoring
the effect of the line pack will lead to a significant
underestimation of the gas supply reliability.
To evaluate the gas supply reliability, two processes
should be employed: the calculation of the probability of
each operating situation and the using of hydraulic
simulation for each operating situation, in which, the key
problem actually lies in the first process. The difficulty is
that there are a large variety of operating situations. The
research conducted in Refs. [23,35,36] showed that the
solutions to such problem mainly included the analytical
method and simulation method. The commonly used
analytic methods consist of the state enumeration method,
the probability graph method, the minimum cut set
method, and so on. These methods are not appropriate
for the large system because of the massive and complex
calculations. The simulation method, especially the Monte
Carlo sampling method, is therefore widely used to solve
this problem [37–40]. In addition, each operating situation
which corresponds to a gas supply flow rate can be
computed by hydraulic simulation [33,41]. Moreover, the
reduction of the calculation time as much as possible while
ensuring the accuracy of calculation is also a problem that
needs to be solved in the evaluation of gas supply
reliability [42–46].
The aim of this paper is to propose an integrated and
systematic methodology to assess gas supply reliability, in
which the two major difficulties mentioned above can be
overcome. This methodology should not only evaluate the
gas supply reliability in the past, but also forecast the gas
supply reliability in the future. Moreover, a real natural gas
pipeline network is applied to confirm the applicability of
the approach proposed, and a comparison of the calculated
results and the actual gas supply reliability based on the
filed data in the evaluation period is presented. Further-
more, the effect of different components on gas supply
reliability is investigated, and the key of the components is
identified.
2 Indexes of gas supply reliability
As mentioned above, establishing a set of scientific,
objective, and systemic gas supply reliability index is of
great significance for the research on gas supply reliability
[47–51]. Two main factors including abundance and
 Feng CHEN et al. Forecasting gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline systems
continuity can contribute to a reliable gas supply task. The
abundance condition means that sufficient amount of gas
from the gas network system can be supplied to meet the
user’s demand in the evaluation period while the continuity
condition means that the user’s demand can be met in each
moment in the evaluation period.
In this paper, a set of gas supply reliability index is
proposed, which can be divided into the abundance index
and continuity index. Figure 1 shows the framework of the
gas supply reliability indexes. The abundance index is the
consumer satisfaction index (CSI) which can evaluate the
degree of consumer’s satisfaction in gas amount, while the
supplied continuity index includes the loss of enough gas
amount (LEGA), the loss of enough gas frequency
(LEGF), and the loss of enough gas duration (LEGD).
2.1 CSI
CSI aims at assessing the degree that the gas pipelines
system meets the user’s demand in terms of the gas
amount, which can be calculated as
Supplyj
CSIj ¼ , (1)
Demandj
where CSIj represents the satisfaction degree of user j in
the period, Demandj is the gas demand needed by the jth
(jnd, jst) user, Supplyj is the gas amount supplied to the jth
(jnd, jst) user in the period.
In more detail, the gas amount supplied is defined as
XN
Supplyj ¼ P $Qj-i , (2)
i¼1 i
where Pi is the probability that the gas pipeline system in
the ith (ind, ist) scenario in the period (It is supposed that
there are N scenarios in the network system.); Pi can be
Fig. 1 Gas supply reliability indexes.
3
obtained by statistical analysis, which will be described in
Section 3; The Pi and N in the following index expressions
have the same meaning; Qj-i is the gas amount that gas
pipelines system transports to the jth (jnd, jst) user in the
ith(ind, ist) scenario in the period; and CSI is a macro-
indicator that can just measure the gross amount between
supply and demand.
Therefore, it can be seen that the CSI is a dimensionless
number between 0 and 1. The closer the calculation result
of CSI to 1, the higher the degree that the gas network
system can satisfy user’s demand in the evaluation period.
This paper shows that temperature is the most obvious
factor affecting the user’s demand. The long evaluation
period will result in inaccurate gas supply reliability
forecasting due to the inaccurate of user’s demand
forecasting result.
2.2 Continuity indexes
It is far from enough to describe the gas supply reliability
degree with CSI along. The satisfaction of the total
quantity in the period cannot guarantee that the user’s
demand can be satisfied in every single moment. Hence,
continuity indexes, which are modified from the reliability
indexes of electric power utilities, are used to reflect the
gas supply reliability. The calculation result of these
indexes can be used to guide the formulation of emergency
measures for administrators of network system if gas
supply shortage happens. Continuity indexes include
LEGA, LEGF, and LEGD.
LEGA means the loss gas amount for users in the
evaluation period. The expression of LEGA is described as
XN
Aj ¼ P  LQij ,
i¼1 j
(3)
4 Front. Energy
where Aj is the sufficient gas amount for user j in the
evaluation period, m3/h; LQij means the sufficient gas
amount for jth (jnd, jst) user in the ith (ind, ist) scenario,
m3/h; and LEGF stands for the frequency that gas supply
shortages happen in the evaluation period.
XN
Fj ¼ P  LDij ,
i¼1 i
(4)
where Fj is the frequency that the gas shortages happen in
jth(jnd, jst) user in the evaluation period; and LDij, the
number of gas supply interruption to jth (jnd, jst) user in
the ith (ind, ist) scenario.
LEGD refers to the time when the gas supply is
insufficient to the user in the evaluation period.
XN
Dj ¼ P  LT ij ,
i¼1 i
(5)
where Dj is the time the gas shortages happen in jth (jnd,
jst) user in the evaluation period; and LTij, the number of
gas supply interruption to jth (jnd, jst) user in the ith (ind,
ist) scenario.
The three factors mentioned above constitute the
continuous indexes of gas supply reliability. Moreover,
each user in the network has a corresponding user
satisfaction degree index. It is not reasonable to use a
general index to describe the gas supply reliability of the
whole gas pipelines network system. As a matter of fact, it
is difficult for a comprehensive index to reflect the
satisfaction for all the users in the network. Each user
has different importance in the large natural gas pipelines
system. Therefore, when gas supply shortage occurs, it is
necessary to sacrifice some less important users to ensure
the demand of more important user, which is common in
the country where the government is in charge of
production, transportation, and sale of natural gas.
Fig. 2 Framework of gas supply reliability evaluation.
3 Calculation of gas supply reliability
indexes
The framework of the methodology of the gas supply
reliability evaluation is shown in Fig. 2. The evaluation
process includes the determination of the typical scenarios
of the pipeline system and the calculation of the probability
of each typical scenario; the calculation of the gas amount
supplied to each user in each typical scenario; and the
evaluation of the gas supply reliability using the proposed
indexes.
In this paper, typical scenario is the operation scenario
with a high probability, which includes the normal scenario
and failure scenario.
3.1 Determination of the typical scenarios and their
probabilities
Natural gas pipeline network system is a repairable,
complicated, and large system, in which the operating
states of the components are uncertainty. Hence, the Monte
Carlo method is adopted for the calculation of the
probability of each operation scenario and determination
of the typical scenarios.
For the ith (ind, ist) Monte Carlo sample, a set of random
number xi is generated as xi = (Numi, FEi, FTi, RTi), where
Numi which represents the number of the failed units in the
ith (ind,ist) sample, is a nonnegative integer. FEi represents
the failed unit in the ith (ind,ist) sample. If the sample is in
a normal operation scenario, the FEi is a null set. FTi and
RTi represent the failure time and maintenance time of
units associated with FEi, respectively.
If the number of Numi equals 0, it means that there are no
failed units in the system within the evaluation period in
 Feng CHEN et al. Forecasting gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline systems 5

the ith (ind, ist) sample. Then the following three elements, Hence, it can be concluded that it might not happen that
FEi, FTi, and RTi, in the xi are null set. If the number of a scenario has two or more failed units at the same time.
Numi equals m (m is a positive integer), it means that there It is easy to deduce the main features of the HPP based
are m failed units within the evaluation period in the ith on the above definitions:
(ind, ist) sample. Therefore, FEi = (f1,f2,...,fm) represents ① In HPP, l is a constant and represents the failure rate
the serial number of the failed units. Similarly, FTi = (ft1, of gas pipelines system.
ft2,...,ftm) and RTi = (rt1,rt2,...,rtm) represent the failure time ② The number of system failure in the time interval (t,
and maintenance time corresponding to the failed units in t + v] follows the Poisson distribution with parameter lt:
the set of FEi, respectively. Moreover, if the number of the
occurrences of a certain type of operation scenario is M ðlvÞn – lv
Pr½N ðt þ vÞ – N ðtÞ ¼ n ¼ e , t³0, v>0: (9)
when the number of the Monte Carlo sample is N (a n!
number large enough), the probability of this scenario ③ The mean number of failed units in the interval (t,
equals M/N. t + v] is
In this paper, the homogeneous Poisson process (HPP) is
used to simulate the failure events of the unit in the pipeline W ðt þ vÞ – W ðtÞ ¼ E½N ðt þ vÞ – N ðtÞ ¼ lv: (10)
system. Let N(t) be the number of failed units within the Xn
④ Sn ¼ T obeys the Gamma distribution of
i¼1 i
time interval (0,t), (S1,S2,...,Sn) is a sequence of the failure
moment, and Ti (i = 1,2,...) is the time interval between Si–1 parameter (n,l), whose probability density function is
and Si. A counting process ({N(t), t≥0}) can be treated as l
a HPP when it satisfies f Sn ðtÞ ¼ ðltÞn – 1 e – lt , t³0: (11)
ðn – 1Þ!
① N(0)= 0;
② [N(t1) – N(0)], [N(t2) – N(t1)],..., [N(tk) – N(tk–1)] are Therefore, the probability that N(t) = n can be calculated
all independent random variables with 0 < t1 < ... < tk, (k = by the total probability formula, if S n £t£S nþ1 and T nþ1
2,3,...); ¼ S nþ1 – S n :
③ The interval time of all failures is independent of
each other and follows the exponential distribution of Pr½N ðtÞ ¼ n ¼ PrðS n £t < S nþ1 Þ
parameter l:
t

Pr½N ðt þ sÞ – N ðsÞ ¼ n ¼
ðltÞn – lt
e , n ¼ 0,1,2:::, (6)
¼ !0PrðT nþ1>t – sjS n ¼ sÞf s ðsÞdsn

n!
n
!0e – lðt – sÞ ðn –l1Þ! ðlSÞn – 1e – ls ¼ ðlvÞ
t
Pr½N ðΔtÞ ¼ 1 ¼ lΔt þ oðΔtÞ, (7) ¼ e – lt : (12)
n!

Pr½N ðΔtÞ³2 ¼ oðΔtÞ: (8) Suppose that there is a HPP with failure rate in the
interval time (0, t0], the distribution of failure time T1 is

Pr½T 1 £t \ N ðt 0 Þ ¼ 1
Pr½T 1 ³tjN ðt 0 Þ ¼ 1 ¼
Pr½N ðt 0 Þ ¼ 1

Prðone failure event happensin ð0,t \ no failure events happenin ðt,t 0 Þ

¼
Pr½N ðt 0 Þ ¼ 1

Pr½N ðtÞ ¼ 1  Pr½N ðt 0 Þ – N ðtÞ ¼ 0 lte – lt e – lðt0 – tÞ t

¼ ¼ – lt 0
¼ , (13)
Pr½N ðt0 Þ ¼ 1 lt 0 e t 0
t
E½T 1 jN ðt 0 Þ ¼ 1 ¼ : (14)
where 0 < t £t0. t0
The failure moment will equably distributed in the
interval (0, t0] when only one failure event happens. The following assumptions are made in this paper:
Therefore, in the interval (0, t0], the failure probability in ① The failure in the system is caused by the failed unit;
each equal length time interval is the same as that of the ② According to Eq. (8), the event that two or more units
others. The expected time of failure is fail simultaneously is ignored;
6 Front. Energy

Fig. 3 Sampling schematic for failed units.

③ Under the assumption of the short repair time and to the users is maximum, and the control modes include the
evaluation period, the same unit that failed twice or more in flow control stage and the pressure control stage. The
the evaluation is ignored; schematic of the control models is depicted in Fig. 4.
④ The failure rate of the unit is assumed as 20 times/a;
and
⑤ The repair time of the unit is assumed as logarithmic
normal distribution, namely T~log normal (μ, τ2). The
þτ 2
mean time to repair (MTTR) is e 2 .
According to Eq. (9), the probability of different
numbers of failed units can be calculated. When the
evaluation period is one month, the probability of the
different numbers of failed units is presented in Table 1.
Obviously, the total probability of all events is 1. It is
assumed that R is the random number that is generated in
the interval [0, 1] and obeys uniform distribution. If R is in
interval [0, 0.8703), the number of failed units in the
evaluation period is 0. If R is in interval [0.8703, 0.9912), Fig. 4 Schematic of control models used in hydraulic simulation.
in which 0.9912 equals 0.8703 plus 0.1209, the number of
failed units is 2. Then, the probability of the other
In Fig. 4, Q and P are the flow rate and pressure of the
operation scenarios can be calculated, and the results are
natural gas supplied to the users, respectively; Qr and Pr are
summarized in Table 1.
the required flow rate and required pressure of the natural
Table 1 Probability of different numbers of failed units gas supplied to the users, respectively; Pmin is the
Number 0 1 2 3 minimum required pressure of the natural gas supplied to
Probability 0.8703 0.1209 0.0084 0.0004 the users; ft and rt are the failure time and maintenance
time, respectively. According to Fig. 4, when system
transits to the abnormal operating conditions, the flow rate
After determining the probability of different operation of the natural gas supplied to the users, Q, is maintained
scenarios, the next step is to determine the failed units. equal to the required flow rate Qr, and then the pressure P
Supposed that the failure rate of the ith (ind, ist) unit is li, a decreases from the required pressure Pr with time. This
stage is called the flow control stage in which the pressure
random number uniformly distributed in the interval ½0, is needed to determine whether pressure P is greater than
Xn
l  is generated. As shown in Fig. 3, if the number
i¼1 i the minimum required pressure Pmin. If P£Pmin, P is
generated is in interval [li–1, li], it means that the failed maintained equal to the required minimal pressure Pmin,
unit is the ith (ind, ist) unit. and the flow rate Q decreases from the required flow rate
Qr with time. This stage is called the pressure control stage.
3.2 Hydraulic analysis based on typical scenarios Therefore, the flow rate and pressure under each operating
situation can be obtained once the failed unit, the failure
In addition, each operating situation corresponds to a gas time, and the maintenance time are determined.
supply flow rate which can be computed by hydraulic Finally, the index of the gas supply reliability can be
simulation. The commercial software Stoner Pipeline obtained by combining the above process.
Simulator (SPS) is used to develop the thermal-hydraulic
system model of the natural gas pipeline system. The
fundamental equations of gas flow including continuity 4 Case study
equation, equation of motion, energy equation, equation of
state, enthalpy equation, and internal energy equation are 4.1 Introduction to the natural gas pipelines network system
considered in the software. The core of the hydraulic
analysis is to determine the control models under various The gas supply reliability of a real natural gas pipeline
abnormal operating conditions. The principle of the control system in China is assessed using the methodology
modes is to ensure that the amount of natural gas supplied proposed. This natural gas pipeline system consists of 1
 Feng CHEN et al. Forecasting gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline systems
Fig. 5 Topology of the pipeline network.
primary line, 2 branch lines, and 1 connecting line. The
layout of this gas pipeline system is illustrated in Fig. 5.
The total length of the primary line is 2826 km, and the
design capacity, design pressure, and pipe diameter are
17 billion m3 per year, 10 MPa, and 1016 mm, respectively.
In this case study, the evaluation period is 7 days. Based
on the framework of the methodology shown in Fig. 2, the
typical scenarios can be determined of and the hydraulic
simulation can be implemented.
4.2 Determination of typical scenarios
As mentioned before, the typical scenarios of the case-
study pipeline system are determined by determining the
number of system failures in the evaluation period,
determining the failed units, determining the failure time,
and determining the maintenance time.
The network system is assumed to be in a stable period
of operation, and the operation process is treated as a HPP
process. According to the EGIG between 1970 to 2010, the
failure rate of European pipelines was between 0.162 and
0.372 time per 1000 km per year. However, China still has
defects in pipeline integrity management and equipment
maintenance. Therefore, there is still a certain gap in unit
safety performance between western countries and China.
According to the information published from the General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China in 2014, the
operation life of oil and gas pipeline is long, and more than
30% onshore pipelines have been in operation for more
than 10 years. Therefore, the accident rate of China’s
pipelines is approximately 4 times per 1000 km per year,
which is higher than the average of western countries.
Assuming the evaluation period is 7 days, the calculated
results of the probability of system failure in the evaluation
period are listed in Table 2.
Table 2 Probability of failures
Number of system failures 0 1
Probability 0.7972 0.1807
7
As can be seen from Table 2 that the joint failure
probabilities of three or more components are sufficiently
rare. Therefore, it is reasonable to restrict the analysis to
single component failures in the case study. Three types of
failure scenarios are considered in the evaluation period,
i.e., no component failure, single component failure, and
joint failure of two components.
As mentioned above, the maintenance time is related to
many uncertain factors, such as the personal factor.
Therefore, the maintenance time of the failed units in the
case study is assumed as the average maintenance time
þτ 2
e 2 .
For this assessment, 1000 Monte Carlo trials are
conducted to calculate the average gas supply reliability
of the pipeline system in the case-study in the evaluation
period. According to the 1000 Monte Carlo trials, 798
trails are the scenarios of no component failure, 184 trails
are the scenario of single component failure, and 18 trails
are the scenario of joint failure of two components. After
determining the typical scenario of the tested pipeline
system, hydraulic analysis is employed to calculate the
flow rate in different scenarios.
4.3 Results and discussion
Based on the determination of the typical scenarios and the
hydraulic simulation, the gas flow rate of each typical
scenario and the evaluation indexes are calculated for each
station, as listed in Table 3.
For comparison, the filed data in the evaluation period is
collected to calculate the actual gas supply reliability, and
the comparison results are listed in Table 4. As observed
from Table 4, the assessment results obtained by using the
methodology proposed agree well with the filed data.
Moreover, the CSI indexes of all the users exceed 99%,
which means that the gas supply reliability for each station
2 3 4 5 6
0.0205 1.5E–3 8.76E–5 3.97E–6 1.50E–7
8 Front. Energy

Table 3 Calculation result of gas supply reliability of the main line

Distribution station/Terminal station Consumer Satisfaction index/ Consumer continuity index
(100%)
LEGA/(m3$(7d)–1) LEGF/(times$(7d)–1)) LEGD/(h$(7d) –1))
BA 0.9951 15854.48 0.527 0.004
XD 0.9955 8136.48 0.595 0.011
LXZ 0.9990 2391.86 0.607 0.003
DY 0.9959 2074.45 0.576 0.006
CZ 0.9952 2286.46 0.608 0.003
LC 0.9947 42710.37 0.516 0.011
LT 0.9949 4462.60 0.539 0.003
ZJ 0.9962 7804.43 0.722 0.023
ChangZ 0.9961 16009.24 0.605 0.025
WX 0.9961 7926.67 0.541 0.004
FR 0.9963 21491.45 0.749 0.016
DQ 0.9931 17688.67 0.772 0.024
LZ 0.9962 50042.33 0.599 0.016
SH terminal station 0.9956 118845.44 1.031 0.121

Table 4 CSI calculation results of theoretical data and actual data

Distribution station/Terminal station Consumer satisfaction index/(100%) Consumer satisfaction index/(100%)
Theoretical data Actual data
BA 0.9951 0.9969
XD 0.9955 0.9958
LXZ 0.9990 1
DY 0.9959 0.9733
CZ 0.9952 0.9812
LC 0.9947 0.9784
LT 0.9949 0.9898
ZJ 0.9962 0.9834
ChangZ 0.9961 0.9899
WX 0.9961 0.9858
FR 0.9963 0.9862
DQ 0.9931 0.9623
LZ 0.9962 0.9916
SH terminal station 0.9956 0.9925

in the main line is high. The reason for this can be
attributed to the low failure rate and the short evaluation
period.
The critical component for each station in the pipeline
system can be identified, and the corresponding amount
and the duration of the gas shortage are calculated. The
pipelines or the combinations with high consequences
have relative high criticalities, which brings a large gas
deficiency.
Obviously, the SH terminal station (abbreviated as SH)
is the most important station in the primary line. Its gas
demand amount is large and the consequences of the loss
of gas supply in SH could cause catastrophic failures.
Figure 6 shows the gas supply reliability of SH terminal
station when 127 different scenarios happen. The hori-
zontal axis represents the serial number of different kinds
of scenarios while the vertical axis represents different
reliability indexes, including CSI, ALECF, ALEGA, and
ALEGD. The 1st point is the calculation result of the intact
scenario where there is no failed unit. The 2nd to 108th
points show the calculation results of the scenarios where
there is one failed component, and the 109th to 127th
points reflect the calculation results of scenarios where
there are two failed components.
 Feng CHEN et al. Forecasting gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline systems 9

Fig. 6 Calculation result of gas supply reliability in SH terminal station.

(a) CSI value; (b) ALEGF value; (c) ALEGA value; (d) ALEGD value.

According to Fig. 6, the 49th scenario is the most severe
scenario for the 2nd to the 108th scenario, which means
that the 48th unit is the most critical component for the SH
terminal station. Moreover, the fact that there exist two
failed components has a greater impact on the gas supply
reliability than the fact that there exist a single failed
component. Finally, the 119th typical scenario results in
the most severe consequence, and the loss of enough gas
when the 119th scenario happens is 175.61
104 m3.
5 Conclusions and future work
In this paper, the abundance index and continuity index
were proposed to evaluate the gas supply reliability from
quantity and time, respectively. Besides, the calculation
method for the reliability indexes was proposed consider-
ing both the hydraulic characteristics and the uncertainties
of the operating state of natural gas pipeline network
system. In the method proposed, the failure scenarios for
natural gas pipelines network were sampled by the Monte
Carlo method based on the counting process theory, and
the hydraulic simulation based on SPS software was
employed to calculate the flow rate in each scenario.
The method proposed for gas pipelines system analysis
was applied in a simulation case study which made it
possible to determine the effect of failure and sequential
closure of failed element on the gas supply for the
consumers. The calculation results can also determine the
fatalness of each failed unit to the whole system. More-
over, the developed method demonstrates its applicability
for the gas supply reliability assessment of a real gas
pipelines system, and the assessment results of the
developed methodology agree well with the filed data.
Furthermore, the most critical component and scenarios in
the tested system can be identified. For example, the 48th
unit is the most critical component for the SH terminal
station, and the 119th typical scenario results in the most
severe consequence, because the loss of enough gas
amount when the 119th scenario happens is 175.61

104 m3.
Nevertheless, the methodology proposed still suffers
from several limitations, whose major drawbacks are the
long time of the simulation and the lack of convergence
10 Front. Energy

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