Introducing the Pipescan HD Tool
High quality ferrous metal testing has long been a challenge. The efficiency has a direct impact on maintenance planning – getting it right is key to reducing plant downtime, cost-efficiency and lowered incidences of damage and unplanned shutdowns.
One of the greatest enemies is corrosion – the bane of coated and uncoated metal assets that grows from virtually imperceptible beginnings to a cancer that can cause whole operations to close down.
The following takes a deep dive into the relationship between corrosion, its monitoring and the corrosion-mapping tool that can help fight the ongoing battle for all asset maintenance and repair teams.
The Monitoring Challenge
Metal surfaces, be they pipes, walls, floors or any other part of an asset, are all subject to corrosion.
Once areas of early corrosion are identified, they need to be regularly monitored. This allows the area and level of damage to be assessed, with forward planning for repair or replacement being factored in at a suitable time.
In theory, this sounds simple. However, putting it into achievable practice is somewhat more complex. Problems include:
- With hidden from view areas, managing to manually visualise the areas usually requires further shutdowns and all the logistic challenges (and loss of revenue) this brings.
- While a variety of NDT testing is available (UT, magnetic flux, acoustic emission, guided wave, radiographic etc), many require time, expertise and the ability to reach hard-to-access areas, such as the interior of pipelines or assets at height.
- Achieving reliable, verifiable data that allows for accurate monitoring of the corrosion spread.
- Failure to recognise advancing corrosion leads under-performing assets, breakdown and accidents.
Cutting Edge Solutions
The PipeScan HD, a fast-to-deploy, user-friendly tool offers the highest resolution MFL scanner available today. Not only is the equipment simple to setup, but it also automatically records all the scanned data, presenting it in an on-the-spot report.
It can be used on coated and non-coated ferrous metals and has a high probability of corrosion detection (reporting defects as small as 1mm/0.04”). The discovery of such minimal pitting plays a huge role in monitoring the spread of corrosion and can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as:
- Jetty lines
- Dead legs
- Vessels
- Manifold lines
- Terminal pipework
- Boiler pipes
With flexible heads, the equipment can be used to monitor and test a wide range of pipes and vessel sizes. Plus it can be used with minimal training, further reducing testing costs as there’s no need for niche-trained personnel.
Both of the above NDT tools are examples of how corrosion monitoring and asset inspection can realistically be increased. With the ability to carry out critical inspection and monitoring tasks in hours, plant maintenance teams can increase the regularity – with the resulting repair planning being far easier to implement.
Contact us to find out more about The PipeScan HD or any of our other custom solutions, or request a quote online.
Find out how Magnetic Flux Leakage tools work and their advantages in “What Is Magnaflux Leakage?“
