High resolution magnetic flux leakage (MFL) in-line inspection (ILI) technology has proven to be one of the most effective approaches to manage corrosion anomalies in pipeline industry. However, pipeline casings are suspected of compromising the performance of MFL tools.

A research project was carried out by TC Energy with ROSEN to better understand the effect of pipeline casings on the performance of the MLF ILI technology. The study involved full-scale pull through testing to investigate effects of various casing conditions and the presence of different types of casing spacers on the tool’s sizing and detection performance for corrosion anomalies, including the casing eccentricity, the presence of metallic and electrolytic shorting and the presence of different types of casing spacers. The testing for various eccentricity and shorting scenarios were compared to an uncased baseline scenario.

To quantify the effect of various casings conditions and different types of spacers on the MFL tool performance, comprehensive data analytics were performed to analyze the results obtained from the full-scale pull through testing. The analysis identified the dominant factors that influence the tool’s detection and sizing performance for cased pipes, including the annulus gaps between the casing and the carrier pipe at the feature location, and the presence of certain type of spacers. Using the full-scale pull through testing data, probabilistic characterizations of the tool’s sizing and detection performance corresponding to ranges of these factors were obtained. The probabilistic characterizations of the tool performance within casings obtained from this study can be incorporated in TC Energy’s comprehensive probabilistic ILI-based corrosion management program.

Case studies demonstrated that with appropriate consideration of the tool performance, TC Energy’s probabilistic ILI based corrosion management program would potentially be able to effectively manage corrosion anomalies within cased pipes using ILI and additional research and testing is underway to support this conclusion.


Full-Scale Pull Testing Study of the Mfl-a Performance Within Casings to Improve Ili-Based Corrosion Management of Cased Pipes

Division / Sponsors: 
Pipeline Systems Division

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IPC/IPC2020/volume/84447

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