Innovative Electromagnetic Sensors for Pipeline Crawlers Progress Report: October 2005 - March 2006 (open access)

Innovative Electromagnetic Sensors for Pipeline Crawlers Progress Report: October 2005 - March 2006

Internal inspection of pipelines is an important tool for ensuring safe and reliable delivery of fossil energy products. Current inspection systems that are propelled through the pipeline by the product flow cannot be used to inspect all pipelines because of the various physical barriers they encounter. Recent development efforts include a new generation of powered inspection platforms that crawl slowly inside a pipeline and are able to maneuver past the physical barriers that can limit inspection. At Battelle, innovative electromagnetic sensors are being designed and tested for these new pipeline crawlers. The various sensor types can be used to assess a wide range of pipeline anomalies including corrosion, mechanical damage, and cracks. Battelle is in the final year on a projected three-year development effort. In the first year, two innovative electromagnetic inspection technologies were designed and tested. Both were based on moving high-strength permanent magnets to generate inspection energy. One system involved translating permanent magnets towards the pipe. A pulse of electric current would be induced in the pipe to oppose the magnetization according to Lenz's Law. The decay of this pulse would indicate the presence of defects in the pipe wall. This inspection method is similar to pulsed eddy …
Date: May 4, 2006
Creator: Nestleroth, J. Bruce
System: The UNT Digital Library