Digital Integrity

Intelligent Integrity Monitoring

Integrity monitoring is currently a labour intensive process , expensive to carry out and still may not provide the data needed. MASiP is a new pipeline system which offers a new approach to digital pipeline integrity management. Spirally wound optical fibre is embedded in the structure of a new type of flexible pipe. This provides a very intimate connection to pipe behaviour making real time monitoring of pressure temperature, stress / strain, vibrations, etc., possible for every 0.2m of the pipe. Pig tracking, locating stuck pigs and optimising pig cleaning schedules are all facilitated. This has the potential to reduce the pigging schedule by being better informed of what is going on in the pipe.

Our helical optical fibre strain based digital system (HOF) offers 1000x greater sensitivity than other available systems.

The pipe wall structure and manufacturing process incorporates the fibre optic cable as a spiral winding. Trials have shown that this enhances sensitivity to von mises stress in the pipe reinforcement. This enables pressure changes inside the pipe and outside it such as ground movement to be measured accurately and pinpointed to specific locations. These events are then fed into an interpretive fatigue life algorithm as a real time alert of residual pipe life.

This highly sensitive strain-based digital system that uses fibre optic technology to detect and predict pipeline failure, providing real-time data visualization is poised to revolutionize pipeline integrity and risk management. The technology is a potential solution for real time monitoring of defect growth, threat alerting and estimation of fatigue life of MASiP Pipe.

The condition monitoring and threat alerting dashboard for MASiP, allows for the addition or removal of new pipelines, pipe schematics, and maps, providing a universal display for critical parameters such as strain, temperature, pressure, and fatigue life. The dashboard's integration of diverse data streams presents a powerful tool for monitoring and managing pipeline integrity, enabling users to track relevant metrics and promptly identify possible threats to the system's safety.

The Fatigue Threat Module in the SPS Dashboard is based on the fatigue algorithm to facilitate real time fatigue cycle counting into strain bins by a Rainflow-counting algorithm and convert that into a cumulative effective crack length and remaining fatigue life.

The implementation of a helical optical fibre system with a fatigue life algorithm could significantly improve the safety and maintenance of hydrogen pipelines.

The figure above shows the internal structure of the MASiP Pipe without the coating (right) and the leak prevention visualization dashboard. The spirally wound fibre optic cable providing the sensing system to monitor pipeline parameters with a high spatial resolution. Purpose built visualization dashboards provide valuable real time data for pipeline condition monitoring.