Oil and Gas Assets Condition Monitoring By High Sensitive PAUT Hydroform Corrosion

Monitoring Technique for Integrity Assessment

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B.C. Mohan, M. C. Jeyasekhar,

Mozzat Enterprise SDN BHD, Lot.2273, Kg Duhan Industrial Land, Kuala Belait, Negara Brunei Darussalam

[email protected] / [email protected]

Contract Manager, Mozzat Enterprise SDN BHD

Operation & Asset Integrity NDT L3 / Quality Control Engineer, Mozzat Enterprise SDN BHD

Abstract:

Oil and gas industries are using conventional ultrasound thickness measurement technique for different applications
in condition monitoring of asset equipments such as pressure vessels, pipelines, piping, risers, structural components
and storage tanks. The survey reading can vary inspector to inspector during searching to get the minimum thickness
on each grid. In addition, the possibility of missing localized corrosion and pitting by the inspector during the
inspection. The evolution of phased array technology and data processing speed combined with hydroform scanner is
a useful tool to monitor corrosion in On-stream inspection. This technique represents more than 500 acquitions points
every 1mm2 than common ultrasonic thickness gauging. Reliable corrosion assessment is essential for asset integrity
assessment. The manual ultrasonic thickness gauging is not effective and cumbersome technically because of
sensitivity, time and cost. This paper mostly discusses to overcome from asset integrity inspection issues such as
operator error, missing discontinuity, reliable report, time consumption, report review and interpretation while using
the high sensitivity PAUT hydroform corrosion monitoring technique. A comparative study made between high
sensitive PAUT hydroform and manual ultrasonic thickness gauging for corrosion monitoring to sensitivity, speed,
and probability of detection, data acquisition, report, review, interpretation, storage and retrieval to yield the reliable
result of the asset integrity assessment. This technique helps to boost fitness for purpose, integrity assessments as per
API – 579 and ASME B 31G, BS 7910 and DNV – RP -101. It also increases the confidence level to operate, the life
overdued assets in terms of plant health, human safety, environmental safety and process safety.

Keywords: Ultrasonic thickness gauging, Phased Array ultrasonic testing and Condition Monitoring

1 Introduction:

Most of the oil and gas industries are using different types of inspection and surveillance such as internal
visual inspection, on-stream inspection, thickness measurement, various nondestructive inspections, and
external visual inspection to ensure the integrity of the equipment for safe operation. Thickness
measurement is the most common method to verify the thickness because it is used to calculate corrosion
rates and remaining life of the component. Normally thickness measurements are taken while the
component under operation that is called on-stream inspection. On-stream thickness monitoring is a
fantastic tool to monitor corrosion and assess process potential damages. The thickness reading shall be
obtained by a trained and qualified inspector or examiner. Even though, Oil and gas industries are facing
few failures every year all over the world due to some limitations of the inspection methods. This research
paper gives some ideas to achieve high sensitivity in ultrasonic thickness gauging technique to avoid
failures and maximize the integrity of the oil and gas equipments for safe operation.

2 Condition Monitoring:

Condition monitoring is a periodic examination, which conducted on designated areas in order to assess the
condition of the equipments for safe and continuous operation. The designated areas may contain one or
more points and utilize multiple techniques based on the predicted damage mechanism. Each equipment
system shall be monitored with appropriate placed condition monitoring locations. The condition
monitoring locations are mostly used by ultrasonic testing to get several measurements, The obtained
reading from the condition monitoring points will help to calculate the corrosion rate, remaining life and
next inspection schedule. The effectiveness of condition monitoring is marking the locations on the
component and recording the reading, which are useful to take repetitive measurements at the same
locations. Condition monitoring locations are distributed throughout the corrosion circuit based on the
expected damage mechanism and the expected potential consequence of loss of containment. The minimum
number of condition monitoring locations is enough for low corrosion rate areas, example - uniform
corrosion areas. But, the maximum number of condition monitoring locations is required for high corrosion
rate areas, example - localized corrosion. Manual ultrasonic thickness gauging technique may miss the
localized corrosion so that required high sensitivity technique to capture the localized corrosion. The
solution has provided in this paper to the operation and asset the integrity engineers to choose high
sensitivity method to detect localized corrosion.

3 Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement:

Ultrasonic thickness gauging is a generally accepted nondestructive test technique all over the world to
measure the wall thickness of a material from one side of the material. The human ear can hear an audible
sound up to around twenty thousand cycles per second (20 Kilohertz). High sound energy and high
frequencies are used in ultrasonic inspection, which means the produced sound beyond the limit of human
hearing. Ultrasonic transducer is generating an ultrasonic sound pulse. The generated sound pulse is
transmitted to the test object and reflected from the inside surface because of an interface. Normally,
ultrasound equipment is operating pulse/echo mode to detect the transmitted and reflected sound energy.
This research has been conducted by using pulse /echo mode ultrasonic thickness gauging equipment.
Olympus 38 DL plus ultrasonic thickness gauge is used for this research to know the sensitivity while
conducting grid scanning. A reference block used for this research which has a combination of round bottom
holes and flat bottom holes and the dimensions are as shown in the figure 1, 2 and table1. The round bottom
holes are used to verify the sensitivity of the ultrasonic system to detect realistic corrosion defects. The flat
bottom holes are less realistic reflectors which are useful for sensitivity setting and calibration process. The
research has been conducted by two qualified level 2 operators. The length, width and thickness of the
reference blocks are L 450mm, W 200mm and T 40mm. It consists of 6 round bottom holes and 6 flat
bottom hole. Each hole has different depths and diameters to compare manual ultrasonic grid scanning
technique and PAUT Hydro form corrosion mapping technique. The round bottom holes y –axis datum
start from the top of the reference block and flat bottom holes y axis datum starts from the bottom of the
reference block.

Figure 1: Reference Block

Figure 2: Reference Block Dimensions

Type Datum X- 75mm X-135mm X-195mm X-255mm X-315mm X-375mm

X-axis Y- 60mm Y- 60mm Y- 60mm Y- 60mm Y- 60mm Y- 60mm
Y-axis 1 2 3 4 5 6
Depth X Ø 0.5mm X 0.5mm X 1mm X 1mm X 1.5mm X 1.5mm X
FBH 3mm 10mm Ø 3mm Ø 10mm Ø 3mm Ø 10mm Ø

Depth X Ø 0.5mm X 0.5mm X 1mm X 1mm X 1.5mm X 1.5mm X

RBH 3mm 10mm Ø 3mm Ø 10mm Ø 3mm Ø 10mm Ø

Table 1 Reference Block Dimensions

4 Manual Grid Scanning:

The manual grid scanning method is specifically used to detect localized internal grooving or corrosion
which may otherwise not be detected by general scanning. During the grid scan, a minimum of one back
wall echoes signals should be displayed on the screen and these should be observed for indications of wall
loss. A matrix shall be drawn in the component to perform grid scan. The measuring probe shall be moved
to scan the each grid in the matrix with the minimum overlap shall be 15% and the rate of scanning speed
shall not exceed more than 6 inches/Sec. Set up a table with the numerical grid designation as column
headings and the alpha designation as row headings. The research has been conducted with 1inch (25.4mm)
x 1inch (25.4mm) grid size. The manual grid scanning has conducted on the above reference block and the
reading is recorded in the table 2. The manual grid scanning technique has detected only 3 flat bottom holes
and the remaining flat bottom holes, all round bottom holes are missed. The inspection captured 3 holes out
of 12 which means 25% of the holes are detected and the total time spent from starting to until release the
report is around 3 hours.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
A 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.0 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.0 40.0 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.0 39.9 39.9 40.1 39.9
B 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.0 39.9 40.0 39.9 40.0 40.0 40.0 40.1 40.1 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.1 40.1
C 40.1 39.9 40.1 39.9 39.6 40.1 40.1 40.1 39.9 38.1 39.9 40.1 40.0 40.1 37.6 40.1 40.1
D 40.1 39.9 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.1 40.1 40.1 39.9 40.1 39.9 39.9 40.0 39.9 40.1 39.9 40.0
E 40.0 40.0 39.9 40.0 39.9 40.1 39.9 40.1 40.1 40.0 40.1 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.1 39.9 40.0
F 40.0 40.0 40.0 39.9 39.9 40.1 40.1 39.9 40.1 40.0 40.1 40.0 40.1 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.0
G 40.0 40.1 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.1 40.1 40.0 40.0 40.1 40.0
H 40.0 40.1 39.9 40.1 39.9 40.0 40.1 40.1 40.1 40.0 39.9 40.1 40.1 39.9 40.0 40.1 40.1

Table 2: Manual Grid Scan Readings

5 Phased Array Technology, Equipment and Probe:

5.1 Introduction: Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) is a popular advanced nondestructive
examination technique all over the world which utilizes a set of ultrasonic testing (UT) probes made up of
numerous small elements in a single casing. Each element of phased array probes is pulsed individually
with the help of computer-calculated timing. In the phased array ultrasonic testing, the phased term denotes
the timing, and the term array denotes the multiple elements. PAUT are performed very quickly compare
than the manual ultrasonic testing, which means within a few minutes can complete a large area. The
operator can easily scan and repeat the scans because it has a high degree of repeatability. Phased array
inspection can able to generate detailed and cross –sections of the part because the probes can emit
sequentially the beams from multiple different angles. This method can control operational parameters
angles, beam divergency, focussing and grating lobes. This method is very efficient in terms of defect
detection and speed of testing so that this research has selected the technique to conduct corrosion mapping
on the above reference block.

5.2 Equipment: Olympus Omniscan MX2 pulse echo and attenuation control stepped in 2dB or less
increments phased array equipment used for this research to perform corrosion mapping. It contains 16 or
32 independent pulser or receiver channels. The system is capable of generating B-scan, C-scan along with
A scan display. In addition, the computer is used for data analysis with the help of Tom view software. The
equipment linearity check includes screen height and amplitude control. The screen height linearity checked
in accordance with ASME Sec V Article 4 Appendix I and amplitude control linearity checked in
accordance with ASME Sec V Article 4 Appendix II.

5.3 Probe: Olympus 7.5L64 phased array probe having 64 elements linear casing with a pitch value of
0.5mm used for this research to perform corrosion mapping.

6 HydroFORM Scanner:

Ultrasonic thickness gauges can detect general corrosion which may miss localized corrosion and
erosion/corrosion, but the HydroFORM scanner can detect wall thickness reductions due to general
corrosion localized corrosion and erosion/corrosion. It can detect mid-wall damages such as hydrogen
induced blistering and laminations it also easily differentiates these anomalies from loss of wall thickness.
The combination of phased array and the HydroFORM provides high resolution and fast coverage. It has
a 60 mm wide effective beam so that it can scan at a speed up to 100 mm/s. Omniscan MX2 and
HydroFORM are the a best cost effective choice for operation and asset integrity department. The
transducer is placed in the water column and the water column is coupled to the front surface of the object.
The immersion concept is allowing excellent surface conformance, easy synchronization and eliminating
wedges. This excellent technique is to identify and detect the front - wall echo/loss of outer diameter and
the back wall echo/loss of inner diameter due to corrosion. Compression/angle beam probes are used with
this technology to detect and characterize various anomalies.

7 PAUT Corrosion Mapping:

Corrosion mapping is the best quantitative technique to inspect the materials where corrosion or erosion
can reduce the wall thickness. A successful corrosion mapping inspection includes the combination of a
high probability of detection on corrosion damages and the full area of interest coverage. This research has
been conducted on the same reference block to know the sensitivity and conduct comparative study. The
inspection captured 9 holes out of 12 which means 75% of the holes are detected. The total time spend for
the inspection is an hour, which includes from inspection starting time to until release the report. The flat
bottom holes are detected as shown in the figure 3 and the round bottom holes are detected as shown in
figure 4. The detected flat bottom holes information’s are in table 3 and the detected round bottom holes
information’s are in table 4.

Figure 3: PAUT Detected Flat Bottom Holes

Sl No Actual Dimension Measured Dimension

1. 1.5mm Deep x 10mmØ 1.5mm Deep x 10mmØ
2. 1.5mm Deep x 3mmØ 1.5mm Deep x 3mmØ
3. 1mm Deep x 10mmØ 1mm Deep x 10mmØ
4. 1mm Deep x 3mmØ 1mm Deep x 3mmØ
5. 0.5mm Deep x 10mmØ 0.5mm Deep x 10mmØ
6. 0.5mm Deep x 3mmØ 0.5mm Deep x 3mmØ

Table 3: PAUT Detected / Measured Flat Bottom Holes Dimensions

Figure 4: PAUT Detected Round Bottom Holes

 Sl No Actual Dimension Measued Dimension
1. 1.5mm Deep x 10mmØ 1.5mm Deep x 10mmØ
2. 1.5mm Deep x 3mmØ Can’t able to detect
3. 1mm Deep x 10mmØ 1mm Deep x 10mmØ
4. 1mm Deep x 3mmØ Can’t able to detect
5. 0.5mm Deep x 10mmØ 0.5mm Deep x 10mmØ
6. 0.5mm Deep x 3mmØ Can’t able to detect

Table 4: PAUT Detected / Measured Round Bottom Holes Dimensions

8 Comparative Study:

The comparative study has conducted between manual ultrasonic grid scanning and phased array corrosion
mapping techniques. The manual ultrasonic grid scanning results are revealing the below information’s as
mentioned and the phased array corrosion mapping results are revealing the below information’s as
mentioned in the table 5.

Items Manual Grid Scanning PAUT Corrosion Mapping

Sensitivity Moderate High
Speed Very Poor Very High
Probability of detection Poor High
Data acquisition Manual Automatic
Report Manual Software
Review Hard Copy Soft Copy
Interpretation Manual Software
Storage and Retrieval Hard Copy - Hard Soft copy - Easy

Table 5: Manual Grid Scanning and PAUT Corrosion Mapping Comparative Study

9 Integrity Assessment:

Oil and gas production equipments are experiencing various forms of damages during their life from
manufacturing to until demolition. To establish the short and long term integrity of the equipment’s, it is
important to know the minimum thickness of equipments under the given operating conditions. The
integrity assessment requires engineering judgement and systematic approach. Oil and gas industries are
mostly using API 510, 570, 653, 579, ASME B 31G, BS 79100 and DNV – RP -101 for fitness for purpose
assessment. Accurate thickness readings are most useful to perform an asset integrity assessment and run
the equipment safely. Pressure vessels are assessed by API 510 and 579, piping and piping components is
assessed by API 570 and 579, above ground storage tanks are assessed by API 653 and 579, and pipeline
is assessed by ASME B 31 G and DNV – RP -101. The manual and phased array ultrasonic thickness testing
techniques are the most useful to get the net remaining wall thickness for asset integrity calculations.

10 Conclusion:

Both manual ultrasonic thickness gauging and phased array corrosion mapping inspections are performed
on the above mentioned reference block for flat bottom and round bottom holes. Both inspections results
are compared with sensitivity, speed, probability of detection, data acquisition, report review, interpretation,
data storage and retrieval. The research concluded from the comparative study that the phased array
corrosion mapping is a high sensitivity condition monitoring technique for oil and gas asset integrity
management. Most of the failures are happening due to localized internal corrosion which may not be
detected by manual ultrasonic thickness gauging technique. Phased array corrosion mapping technique can
detect the localized internal corrosion is confirmed by the research result. Through this effective inspection
technique, oil and gas operation and asset integrity engineers can solve the missing internal localized
corrosion problems. Surely, this technique can reduce the localized internal corrosion failures now and
future.

Reference:

[1] M. Moles, “Applications of Encoded Phased Arrays”, CINDE Journal, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 9 – 12,
Sep/Oct, 2012.

[2] S. Tangadi, N.K.S.P. Telidevara, and H.K. Maddi, “PAUT as Tool for Corrosion Damage
Monitoring”.

[3] A. Akula, S. Goel, R. Ghosh, “Condition Monitoring Saves Money and Prevents Failures”, CEP,
Aug, 2017.

[4] A. Lamarre, “High-Resolution Corrosion Monitoring for Reliable Assessment of Infrastructure”, 19th
World Conference on Non-Destructive Testing, Quebec City, 2016, pp. 1-7.

[5] B.C. Mohan and M.C.Jeyasekhar, “Non-intrusive Inspection for process pressure vessels by
Advanced and common NDT techniques save cost whilst enhance safety and reliability”, 15th Asia
Pacific Conference for Non-Destructive Testing, Singapore.