Corrosion and deposit determination in large diameter pipes by radiography

Two steel reference pipes with outer diameters of 8 and 12 inches were machined to make artificial defects on each of them, such as inside and outside steps of different wall thicknesses, inside and outside flat bottomed holes (FBH) of different diameters and depths on steps, flat area (FA), and ground patch (GP). The artificial defect were made to simulate natural corrosion attack as regular corrosion and pitting. The two reference pipes were tested according to tangential radiography technique and double wall single image technique. Tangential radiography technique had been applied using Co-60 radio-isotope to determine the steps thicknesses, the FBH, the remaining wall thickness under the FA, the remaining wall thickness above the GP, and the minimum detectable thickness of the artificial cement deposit on the two reference pipes, with and without insulation. Double wall single image technique had also been applied on the two reference pipes with and without insulation using Ir-192 radio-isotope to measure the flat bottomed holes depths, GP depth, and FA depth by density measurement. The measurement results obtained from the radiographs confirm that, tangential radiography technique can be applied to detect and evaluate the inside and outside regular corrosion attack in the large diameter pipes. It can also be applied to detect and evaluate the outside FBH with depth equal or greater than 10%. Inside 10% FBH and inside 20% FBH can not be detected if their diameters are not larger than certain value related to diameter and wall thickness of the pipe under test. Increasing the film density up to 5 outside the pipe did not provide any detection improvement of 10% and 20% inside FBH. Tangential radiography technique can also be applied to detect and measure the deposit inside the pipes. Double wall technique can be applied as an alternative method of the tangential radiography technique to detect and to evaluate the shallow and small diameter, 10% and 20% inside FBH, in the insulated and non-insulated large diameter pipes. (author)