Prediction of Pipe Failure Rate in Heating Networks Using Machine Learning Methods

Abstract

The correct prediction of heating network pipeline failure rates can increase the reliability of the heat supply to consumers in the cold season. However, due to the large number of factors affecting the corrosion of underground steel pipelines, it is difficult to achieve high prediction accuracy. The purpose of this study is to identify connections between the failure rate of heating network pipelines and factors not taken into account in traditional methods, such as residual pipeline wall thickness, soil corrosion activity, previous incidents on the pipeline section, flooding (traces of flooding) of the channel, and intersections with communications. To achieve this goal, the following machine learning algorithms were used: random forest, gradient boosting, support vector machines, and artificial neural networks (multilayer perceptron). The data were collected on incidents related to the breakdown of heating network pipelines in the cities of Kazan and Ulyanovsk. Based on these data, four intelligent models have been developed. The accuracy of the models was compared. The best result was obtained for the gradient boosting regression tree, as follows: MSE = 0.00719, MAE = 0.0682, and MAPE = 0.06069. The feature «Previous incidents on the pipeline section» was excluded from the training set as the least significant.