Устройство для определения места утечки подводного трубопровода с футляром и места негерметичности футляра

Abstract

Background Well-known methods and devices do not provide accurate and reliable determination of the time and place of the underwater pipeline leaks and the leakage of casing, and in case of their damage there is a catastrophic situation from the point of view of industrial and environmental safety, diagnostics which is an urgent task. Aims and Objectives To develop a new method for determining place of the leakage from the underwater pipeline and the place of encasement leak through detecting by piezoelectric transducers the signals of pressure increase/decrease. Conclusion The offered method for determining place of the leakage from the underwater pipeline and the place of encasement leak through detecting by piezoelectric transducers the signals of pressure increase/decrease. The method consists in detecting signals pressure increase/decrease by piezoelectric detectors and locating leakage through a mathematic expression. The amount of detectors is determined by the length of the underwater pipeline. The detectors are installed in the inter-pipe space, where the pressure is automatically maintained below the operating pressure in the underwater pipeline, but above hydrostatic pressure of the depth of the pipeline laying. When the underwater pipeline leak occurs, piezoelectric detectors bend in one direction and generate signals of one sign, and when there is a casing leak, piezoelectric detectors bend in the other direction and produce signals opposite in sign. Signals arrive to the device of the address computation, then to the device of electrical signal sign recognition and to the real-time device which counts the difference in the arrival time of the first and the second flaw signals. The difference is sent to the input of the distance calculation unit. Distance calculation unit keeping in its memory the data of propagation velocity of the shock wave signal and the distance between the detectors calculates the leakage location. The piezoelectric detectors can be made bimorph so that to reduce significantly the distance between detectors and improve the sensitivity of the flaw detection method. Conclusion The offered method makes possible to determine the place and the time of occurrence of leakage from an encased underwater pipeline, and to locate the encasement leak.