Three kilometres of 10" gas line in Venezuela inspected in one day

Teletest ^® has established a new productivity record in Venezuela. Working in conjunction with a local inspection company, TechCorr, P i tested just over 3km of 10-inch 9.8mm wall thickness above ground gas pipe in 12 working hours. A reason for this high productivity was the large range achieved. The A-scan below was typical. The line was free from significant corrosion. The peaks shown are reflections from the welds. Weld M is 150m from the transducer assembly. This means that 300m was inspected from each transducer location.

Teletest Long Range Ultrasonic System

At one point along the pipe there was a valve station as shown in the photograph. Note that there are three branches connecting to the line, two horizontal and one vertical. The A-scan from a position just outside the fence is shown below. Peaks A and B show strong horizontal flexural responses (red lines) and are the signals from the two horizontal branches. Peak C, with a strong blue (vertical flexural) response is from the vertical branch. Note that it was possible to inspect the line beyond the branches.

The client was PDVSA, the national oil company. A team from PDVSA was involved comprising José Briceño, Static Inspection Analyst; José Leal, Reliability Engineer; Medardo Yañez, Reliability Engineer; Luis Bravo, Non-Destructive Testing Leader; Gerardo Chirinos and Rafael Soto, Transportation Gas Leader and Manager. After the inspection José Briceno, commenting on the value of the ability to inspect pipe that could not be tested using traditional methods, said, 'We can now use Teletest ^® to decide when pipe needs replacement or repair before an incident occurs. ..... We never imagined we could inspect 3km in a single day.' Also José Leal said that Teletest ^® was a 'Fundamental pillar ..... of reliability engineering enabling inspection with minimum impact on the business.'

Teletest Long Range Ultrasonic System