Internal Corrosion Detection in Liquids Pipelines

Overview

Main Objective

This project will build upon previous successful development of a sensor system for gas pipelines that is capable of locating areas of water accumulation, determining the corrosivity of any found liquids, is low cost, and can be operated in both piggable and non-piggable pipelines and extend it to liquids pipelines. This methodology would compliment the LP-ICDA and traditional ILI methods but would provide a direct measure of corrosivity/corrosion rate (an improvement upon LP-ICDA) and would be low cost and could be used in unpiggable pipelines (potential improvements over traditional ILI methods).

Public Abstract

Detecting the presence and location of water is an important component of internal corrosion direct assessment of liquid petroleum pipelines. The currently available inspection techniques are limited because some cannot be applied to all pipelines and others require prior knowledge of where to locate the sensors and require costly pipeline excavation to emplace the sensors. Recently a mobile corrosion sensor technology integrated to a wireless network platform, called motes, has been developed and tested. This proposal seeks to build upon previous efforts that have led to the development and testing of functional prototype sensor systems for gas pipelines by modifying the product for use in liquid petroleum lines. The challenge here is to use a unique accoustics based system for location sensing and data transmission. By developing a prototype for testing in the field will get industry and regulator acceptance of this methodology for assessing the risk of internal corrosion will be enhanced and possible improvements to the eventual commercialized system will be possible. The project will be conducted by a team consisting of Aginova and CC Technologies (Research & Testing Partner). The project will be co-funded by Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips.

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