A pilot study on pipeline wall inspection technology tomography

Abstract

Malaysia is one of the world’s third-largest exporter of liquefied natural, the second-largest oil and natural gas producer in Southeast Asia, this signified that development of oil and gas industry in Malaysia particularly has rapidly evolved and so thus the using of steel pipe. Steel pipe is essential and widely uses for fluid transportation in the sense of transporting petroleum, gas, water, steam etcetera. Both corrosion and blockage are the main problem in the oil and gas industry. However, it is reportedly that the main technique used in Malaysia is by using radiation material like gamma ray or X-rays. This technique is too dangerous if extensive care is neglected. Hence, a throughout discussion on established pipe wall inspection technology is pivotal, as it to be applied on different situation of application or study. This paper focusing on the suitability, the basic functionality, advantage and disadvantage on every established pipe wall inspection technology ever known. Mostly tomography researcher in Malaysia particularly, used acrylic pipe as subject for experiment with tomography hardware. Ironically, with that implementation is not entirely portraying the real process of pipeline inspection as conducted by oil and gas company. In this research, steel pipe is used to imitate the real situation of pipeline inspection as conducted. Therefore, the real issues raised is more reliable when conducting the experiment using the real steel pipe thus, could solve the industry problem. From the review that had been done, steel pipe in diameter 203.2 mm and thickness of 7.7 mm will be used in this research to solve the industrial problem situation. A simulation result using finite element analysis method was done using ultrasonic as the main sensors and it shows that the ultrasonic can penetrate successfully into the steel pipe. In conclusion, research using ultrasonic can be used as it proved to have the measurement result where the suitable frequency is 40 kHz with 20 V voltage inserted the most suitable to operate the ultrasonic tomography system.