Corrosion happening at the support regions of the pipes are severe.
Pipe supports can be of various types from simple resting supports, welded sacrificial pads to clamp supports. Ultrasonic NDT plays a major role in the inspection of these supports. But to perform a conventional ultrasonic inspection in such inaccessible region (i.e. at support locations), the pipes have to be lifted out of the supports. This would be undesirable due to the risk of stressing a pipe that would have been already weakened by corrosion and will involve a complete shutdown.
Several NDE techniques exist for such inspection but quantifying the wall loss in an accurate manner depends on the nature and extent of corrosion.
Introducing CUPS, the most reliable solution for inspecting corrosion at the support region of pipelines.
CUPS can detect and estimate corrosion wall loss within pipe supports from the accessible portion of the pipe, without emptying the pipe. It can generate either circumferential or axial ultrasonic guided waves, which are reflected or transmitted from corrosion and other features on the pipe. Since HOMC guided waves are unaffected by the point of incidence of the probe, complete inspection coverage can also be achieved with suitable scanning procedures.
