Development of a permanent installation tool for structural health monitoring of pipelines

There are over 10 million kilometers of pipes and pipelines around the world that carry hazardous fluids. These fluids include oil, oil products, chemicals such as solvents, caustics, acids, corrosives and combustibles and gases, often at high pressure and temperature. These pipes are subjected to corrosion by the environment and contents. The inspection of a great majority of the pipes is mandatory to ascertain their structural integrity as failure to inspect can result in leakage of hazardous material into the environment and even explosion. This paper presents a new and novel permanently installed tool-head called Teletest Perm-A-Mount. This device consists of a transducer array attached directly to the pipe surface providing all the benefits of Teletest Focus Guided Wave Inspection without the problem of access. Perm-A-Mount is a low cost, long life tool installation intended for regular monitoring of piping systems in environmentally hostile, safety critical or difficult to access areas. The installation process has been developed in conjunction with TWI Ltd surfacing and corrosion departments and tested to ensure that the tool will not be a future source of corrosion in piping systems. In this paper, potential benefits will be discussed together with examples of industrial applications of the newly developed system. (author)