Passive Guided Wave Tomography for Erosion Monitoring in an Air/Sand Test Loop

Abstract

The detection and quantification of defects in pipes by non-destructive testing techniques plays a crucial role in several industries (petrochemical and nuclear in particular). Once a defect is detected, assessing its severity enables to schedule maintenance appropriately, hence reducing maintenance cost and rupture or leakage risks. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is an approach that consists in instrumenting a structure with permanent sensors to monitor its health status throughout its life. Guided elastic waves are particularly suitable for SHM applications on thin structures (such as pipes) thanks to their ability to propagate over long distances and their high sensitivity. An SHM approach called "passive guided waves tomography" has emerged in recent years to detect and quantify corrosion in pipes (or plate-like structures). This technology is based on the combination of guided elastic wave tomography algorithms and a passive method such as the so-called ambient noise cross-correlation. It allows to obtain absolute and precise maps of the thickness of an area surrounded by a distribution of sensors without emitting waves, simply by analyzing the elastic noise that exists naturally in the pipe (due to vibrations, fluid-structure interactions with a moving fluid, etc.). In this paper passive guided waves tomography is tested in representative conditions thanks to an erosion loop that circulates air and sand. By impacting the tube wall, sand grains erode the structure, creating thickness losses that we monitor with passive tomography.