Research on multi-objective optimal route selection method for natural gas transmission pipeline

By the end of 2022, the nation’s natural gas pipeline network had reached 12.0 million kilometers, with projections suggesting an expansion to approximately 163,000 km by 2025. This rapid growth, coupled with increased urbanization, has intensified the need for effective pipeline routing to address safety, cost, and environmental concerns. However, traditional methods are often inadequate for these complex challenges. To identify a practical and feasible routing scenario, we developed a methodology for natural gas long-haul pipeline routing: by constructing a multi-objective optimization model of pipeline routing with construction cost, potential casualty loss, and potential environmental loss as optimization objectives, and proposing a safety extension strategy and a multilevel cost raster map strategy, the A* algorithm is realized to be improved and optimized, so that it is applicable to the solution of the multi-objective optimization model of pipeline routing, and then the ideal long-distance natural gas pipeline routing scenario is solved. Compared with the traditional A* algorithm, our improved algorithm can effectively avoid the problem of passing through the impassable area when arranging pipelines, and optimize the route length and direction, and the improvement can reduce the route length by about 3.33% and the bends by about 26.9%. The actual test solved pipe routing scenario also further confirms the validity of our model and algorithm. The results of the study can provide theoretical support and methodological support for the rational and quantitative selection of the ideal natural gas long-distance pipeline routing scenario.