Characterization of Thickness Loss in a Storage Tank Plate with Piezoelectric Wafer Active Sensors

Wencai Liu,Jin Yang,Jianchun Fan

doi:10.3390/cryst12010092

Abstract

In terms of the structural health inspection of storage tanks by ultrasonic guided wave technology, many scholars are currently focusing on the tanks’ floor and walls, while little research has been conducted on storage tank roofs. However, the roof of a storage tank is prone to corrosion because of its complex structure and unique working environment. For this purpose, this paper proposes a reflection/transmission signal amplitude ratio (RTAR) coefficient method for corrosion depth assessment. We studied the relationship between the RTAR coefficient, the corrosion depth, and the guided wave frequency to establish a depth assessment model. More importantly, unlike the traditional reflection coefficient method, the characteristics of guided wave signals, including the propagation and attenuation, are introduced in this model for accurate assessment. To eliminate the interference of residual vibration and improve the detection accuracy of defects, we built a corrosion detection system by using piezoelectric sensors and carried out field tests to verify the performance of the proposed method. We demonstrate that corrosion defects with a minimum depth of 0.2 mm can be quantitatively evaluated.

Highlights

Corrosion causes wall thinning in storage tanks, which leads to failures and leakage of the tanks
A three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) model of a steel plate with a corrosion defect is built by using the commercial FEM software ABAQUS
The corrosion depth detection experiment was performed through the measurement system

Summary

Introduction

Corrosion causes wall thinning in storage tanks, which leads to failures and leakage of the tanks. The leakage of a storage tank may have many serious consequences, such as severe casualties and property losses [1,2,3]. The inspection of corrosion on the tank’s roof is challenging. The fragility of the roof, the hazards linked to the inspection environment, the inaccessibility of corrosion defects, and the limitations of remote inspection can make it inefficient to assess [6,7,8,9,10,11]. The goal of this study is to develop an ultrasonic inspection technique applicable to tank tops for the depth quantification of corrosion defects considering the propagation attenuation factor

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion