Erosion Monitoring using WAND Sensors

Inductosense conducted a 3 month trial on an erosion test rig at Petrobras. The purpose of the trial was to demonstrate that the WAND sensors can be used for accurate erosion monitoring when applied under a layer of material such as a composite repair.

THE PROBLEM

Production pipelines in the Oil & Gas industry are susceptible to erosion due to the high concentration of abrasive material such as sand. Internal erosion has an impact on production and safety and it is therefore important to understand the rate of erosion.  Pipelines frequently have an outer layer of material applied – such as a protective paint, insulation, fire protection or composite repair – however the outer layer will usually need to be removed in order to make a conventional ultrasonic thickness measurement which takes time and adds cost.

THE INDUCTOSENSE SOLUTION

The Inductosense ultrasonic WAND sensors provide accurate erosion monitoring via wall-thickness measurements and enable trending of corrosion rates. The sensors are permanently installed, battery-free and wireless. The sensors are activated when the WAND Data Collector is brought close to the sensor.

For this application, WAND sensors were permanently installed onto pipework on an erosion test rig under a composite wrap repair. The WAND sensors can be applied underneath the repair and accurate thickness measurements of the pipe taken from the underlying sensor without the need to remove the repair.

EROSION MONITORING RESULTS

The pipework was subjected to erosion over a period of 3 months and the rate was also monitored using an in-pipe electrical resistance (ER) probe. The graph shows the results from the WAND sensor and ER probe and the erosion rate from both methods is shown. The results show agreement between the results from the ER probe (0.89mm/year) and the WAND sensors (0.86mm/year) over the 3 month period.

CONCLUSIONS

The trial confirmed that:

The WAND sensors can be used to monitor internal erosion.

The WAND sensors can provide reliable thickness readings of pipes underneath composite repair.

The permanent WAND sensors and contactless acquisition system provided consistent and accurate results for the threemonths that they were installed and used for gathering thickness readings.