Innovative Sensors for Pipeline Crawlers to Assess Pipeline Defects and Conditions

Under Development

Battelle Columbus Laboratories More »

DOE - NETL

Threats and Integrity Management -- Anomaly Detection and Characterization

The electromagnetic sensors (based on eddy current technology) are integrated with a robotic platform (crawler) to conduct internal natural gas pipeline inspections. Combinations of sensor types were used to assess a wide range of pipeline conditions, including corrosion (pitting, localized, and extended), mechanical damage, cracking, and seam weld defects. Small physical size and weight, as well as low electrical power consumption, were the primary design constraints for the crawler systems.

This combined inspection tool provides a means of non-destructive pipeline examination and provides a technique for inspecting a large portion of the pipeline infrastructure that cannot be inspected with existing equipment (unpiggable pipelines). The rotating permanent magnet system has the potential for inspecting unpiggable pipelines since the magnetizer configurations can be sufficiently small with respect to the bore of the pipe to pass obstructions that limit the application of many inspection technologies.

Increased Safety - The system can crawl slowly inside a pipeline and maneuvers past the physical barriers that limit internal inspection applicability, such as bore restrictions, low product flow rate, and low pressure.

Innovative Sensor for Pipeline Crawlers: Rotating Permanent Magnet Inspection, NETL-DOE and PRCI, Contract No. DE-FC26-03NT41881, December 2006.