Jetty Pipeline Ultrasonic Guided Wave (UGW) Inspection Solution

CHALLENGE

The inspection of long-run pipelines against thinning due to corrosion or pitting like defect mechanisms is always challenging. There are numerous methods applied throughout the industry, but none are capable to screen long ranges quickly, and most NDT applications require physical access to the test location and provide local results only.

Ultrasonic Guided Waves (UGW) is now a widely accepted practice for the inspection of long lengths of pipeline screening for Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI).

The project challenge was the inspection of complex Refinery ‘Jetty Pipework’ System ‘long-run piping’ and difficult ‘over-water’ access conditions.

A requirement of the method application is the removal of a small section of pipe insulation at strategic locations in order to ‘site’ the UGW ‘test ring’. Access to the ring locations is normal facilitated via access scaffolding, however this was significantly limited due to the locality of the system pipework ‘over-water’.

SOLUTION

 Integrity NDT provided UGW to quickly screen the full piping system, and access restrictions were overcome using our rope access experts. Our technicians removed local areas of cladding and insulation at pre-determined locations in order to position the UGW test rings, and to achieve full system coverage, making significant time and cost savings.

Following data analysis, UGW screening is backed by follow-up localised supplementary inspections for confirmation, and Integrity NDT can provide the qualitative NDT inspections that may be required to investigate the full extent of any defect indications detected by UGW.