Pipeline corrosion and leakage monitoring based on the distributed optical fiber sensing technology

Abstract

Pipeline is an important structure to transport oil and gas through long distances. However, pipeline also suffers from many threats especially corrosion and leakage. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct pipeline safety monitoring. With the advantage of high precision in distributed strain measurement, the optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) technique is more suitable for pipeline monitoring. In this paper, a new application of the OFDR technique is introduced to monitor both corrosion and leakage. In order to verify this method, simulation tests of corrosion and leakage were conducted. In the corrosion test, several optical fiber sensors were bonded to the pipe surface with the same interval, forming a sensor array. Based on the sensor array, a hoop strain nephogram was created to show the corrosion level and corrosion location. In the leakage test, the results indicated that pipeline leakage can be detected by the distributed optical fiber sensor (DOFS). All the test results demonstrate that it is possible to monitor pipeline corrosion and leakage based on the hoop strain theory and the DOFS.