iPerm – A structural health monitoring device for pipelines

Oil leaks are a major problem faced in Oil and Gas industry with more than 30% of the pipeline accidents attributable to corrosion. According to the European Association of oil companies there are nearly 16,000 km (46% of the total) of pipelines that are over 40 years old, while only 6% are 10 years old or less. The average corrosion-related cost for monitoring, maintenance and replacement of pipeline stands at $7 billion p.a. Failure of ageing pipeline is impacting negatively upon European society and its economy and needs to be addressed immediately. To address this challenge, a structural health monitoring (SHM) system employing guided wave testing (GWT): iPerm has been developed. The system is compact, durable and prevents moisture ingress for permanent installation on pipelines in environmentally hostile, safety critical or difficult to access areas. It utilises rings of piezoelectric transducers placed around the pipe to generate an axisymmetric ultrasonic pulse (typically under 200kHz) which can propagate over long distances (tens of meters) in each direction providing full coverage of pipe and monitors both internal and external defects. Until recently, the application of GWT was done off-load with detachable transducers for periodic inspections. iPerm enables a technology shift towards data enabled infrastructure whilst significantly reducing inspection costs by avoiding repeated access. The permanent installation of transducers improves the reliability of ultrasonic data by removing any transducer coupling variability. This enables enhanced damage monitoring capabilities for early detection of corrosion type defects (>2% cross-section change) to ensure the structural integrity of critical pipelines. The iPerm cloud infrastructure provides instant remote access to historic data and thereby enabling interpretation of monitoring results by qualified inspectors. Three of these system have been installed on different locations in a oil refinery to evaluate the monitoring capabilities of the iPerm system in operational environment.