Abstract
The identification of corrosion, cracks and defects in pipelines used for transporting oil and gas can reduce the possibility of leaks, and consequently, it can limit the extent of an environmental disaster, public hazard and the associated financial impact of such events. Typically, corrosion in oil pipelines is measured with non-destructive ultrasonic or electromagnetic techniques, on the basis that corrosion and defects are often manifest as a change of thickness in the steel from which pipelines are made. However, such approaches are not practical for underground pipelines and their deployment can be complicated for the case of pipelines covered by insulation. In this paper, we present an innovative, non-destructive testing technique, which exploits the backscatter of a combination of fast-neutron and γ radiation from steel samples of a variety of thicknesses consistent with changes that might arise due to corrosion of a pipe wall. Our research demonstrates the potential to measure and characterise different steel thicknesses by detecting both the elastic, fast-neutron backscatter and the Compton-scattered γ radiations, simultaneously. Further, we demonstrate that the presence of insulation yields a consistent and separable influence on the experimental, wall-thickness measurements. The data from experimental measurements are supported by a comprehensive Monte Carlo computer simulation study.
Highlights
The identification of corrosion, cracks and defects in pipelines used for transporting oil and gas can reduce the possibility of leaks, and it can limit the extent of an environmental disaster, public hazard and the associated financial impact of such events
The position of the radiation-sensitive liquid-volume in the detectors has been configured to be in a region of the space below the collimator sheltered from the radiation flux that streams from the 1-cm diameter, collimator pinhole (Figs. 1b and 2a)
Our research was carried out using organic liquid scintillators, a diversity of organic scintillators exists which could be applied; for example stilbene might constitute a valid alternative to the EJ-301 used in this research if a liquid scintillant is not desirable in the application field
Summary
The identification of corrosion, cracks and defects in pipelines used for transporting oil and gas can reduce the possibility of leaks, and it can limit the extent of an environmental disaster, public hazard and the associated financial impact of such events. Corrosion in oil pipelines is measured with non-destructive ultrasonic or electromagnetic techniques, on the basis that corrosion and defects are often manifest as a change of thickness in the steel from which pipelines are made Such approaches are not practical for underground pipelines and their deployment can be complicated for the case of pipelines covered by insulation. A biomimetic relationship exists in this regard between the natural world and technological human achievements, exemplified on the one hand by the reliance of some species of mammals (predominantly bats) on ultrasound, with which to hunt, avoid predators and even to classify different types of plants[1,2,3,4,5], and on the other by sonar[6] The latter is central to a wide variety of non-destructive, industrial assessment techniques and a related international industry, such as the measurement of distance, density, porosity and imaging. This makes X- and γ rays suitable for the investigation of heavy metals, but, on the other, limits the extent to which they can be used to probe relatively thick material samples, because high-Z media attenuate them significantly
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