Research on Application of Wax Deposition Detection in the Nonmetallic Pipeline Based on Electrical Capacitance Tomography

Nan Li,Xiangdong Yang,Kui Liu,Mingchen Cao

doi:10.1155/2016/7390470

Abstract

Wax deposition detection in nonmetallic pipelines is an important requirement in the oil industry. In this paper, an ECT (electrical capacitance tomography) sensor is developed for wax deposition detection in nonmetallic pipelines. Four wax models with different concentrations were established for detection. These models were analyzed through simulations and practical experiments simultaneously and data were compared. A linear back projection algorithm is applied to reconstruct the image with both simulated and experimental data. A comparison of binary images with different concentration of stratified flow was demonstrated; this illustrates that the difference in concentration between the experimental results and profile distribution is less than 1.2%. The experimental results indicate that the ECT system is valid and feasible for detecting the degree of wax deposition in the nonmetallic pipelines.

Highlights

Heat and pressure are widely used in oil and gas pipeline transmission to reduce the viscosity of crude oil and the deposition of wax
The purpose of the present paper is to develop an ECT system for wax deposition detection of a nonmetallic pipeline
linear back projection (LBP) algorithm was applied to reconstruct images

Summary

Introduction

Heat and pressure are widely used in oil and gas pipeline transmission to reduce the viscosity of crude oil and the deposition of wax. Many nondestructive techniques have achieved some degree of success in the pipeline detection field, for instance, the eddy current testing method [2, 3], ultrasonic-based technique [4,5,6,7,8,9,10], radiological image method [11], and magnetic flux leakage detection method [12,13,14]. Most of these techniques are applied to detect pipeline defects, and it is difficult to detect the sediment (i.e., paraffin wax) of the pipeline by using the above technologies, due to various reasons

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