Intelligent Manufacturing and Robotics – Research Article

International Journal of Advanced

Robotic Systems
September-October 2019: 1–9
Corrosion analysis and remaining useful ª The Author(s) 2019
DOI: 10.1177/1729881419877051
life prediction for storage tank bottom journals.sagepub.com/home/arx

Yu Feng, Yujiu Yang and Biqing Huang

Abstract
Corrosion of large storage tank bottom has been identified as the main threat to tank security around the world.
Corrosion detection becomes the main approach to ensure the safety of large storage tanks. In this article, we propose a
two-stage tank bottom corrosion analysis and remaining useful life prediction framework. In the first stage, the causes and
mechanisms of tank bottom corrosion are analyzed, the evaluation metric system is established, and the fuzzy compre-
hensive evaluation method is used to evaluate the health status of tank bottom. The preliminary evaluation result in the
first stage determines whether a subsequent remaining useful life prediction is required. If the tank bottom is not in healthy
state, in the second stage, the remaining useful life prediction of the tank bottom is implemented by acoustic emission and
risk-based inspection. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluation are carried out to provide a basis for the operation and
maintenance decision of storage tanks.

Keywords
Tank bottom, metric system, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, acoustic emission, remaining useful life

Date received: 1 July 2019; accepted: 17 August 2019

Topic: Robot Manipulation and Control

Topic Editor: Henry Leung
Associate Editor: Bin He

Introduction At present, magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing and

acoustic emission (AE) testing are widely adopted to eval-
With the sustainable growth of China’s economy and the
uate the corrosion status of large storage tank. Liu et al.
turbulence of the international crude oil market, sustainabil-
discussed the principles, the use of inspection equipment,
ity has become a global concern in recent years.1,2 As the
and the application of MFL testing technique for atmo-
current global market is rapidly changing, China’s demand
spheric storage tank inspection. The authors also proposed
for strategic oil reserves is growing steadily and continu-
a practical solution for inspecting and evaluating
ously. Serving as the storage equipment for petrochemical
raw materials and related products, large atmospheric stor-
age tanks are playing an increasingly important role. The
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
storage capacity of crude oil in these tanks is usually very
large. Affected by the changes of serving environment and Corresponding authors:
operating conditions, some damage will be gradually accu- Yujiu Yang, Division of Information Science, Tsinghua Shenzhen
mulated, which may eventually lead to serious safety acci- International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055,
China.
dents.3 The corrosion of tank bottom can cause the failure of
Email: yang.yujiu@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn
oil tank, which is the main factor endangering the normal
Biqing Huang, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science
operation of tank.4,5 The corrosion status prediction of the and Technology, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing
tank bottom is crucial for tank maintenance and is also the 100084, China.
main approach to ensure the safety of tank operation.6 Email: hbq@tsinghua.edu.cn

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open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
atmosphere storage tanks using MFL.7 Shi et al. introduced
the main principles, measurement, and processing of MFL
data. As the key point of a quantitative analysis of MFL
detection, the identification of the leakage magnetic signal
is also discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of
different identification methods are analyzed.8 Yu et al.
established the three-dimensional finite element model of
tank bottom, which is then used as a simulation tool to
study the propagation characteristics of AE signals. They
concluded that multipoint measurements can be used to
help understand the status of bottom plate.9 Gong and Hu
constructed an AE system to detect and evaluate tank bot-
tom corrosion. A corrosion detection process was designed
and put in practice for qualitative evaluation.10 Jirarungsa-
tian and Prateepasen carried out AE experiments on differ-
ent types of damage and analyzed the parameters of AE
signals.11 The experimental results were used for on-site
detection of atmospheric storage tanks. Liu et al. analyzed
the advantages and disadvantages of AE detection and
MFL detection and proposed a tank corrosion detection
method by combining the above two methods.12 Based
on the risk-based inspection (RBI) technology, Guo et al.
carried out risk assessment on 20 large atmospheric storage
tanks. By setting different risk levels and implementing
maintenance methods and strategies for each storage tank
correspondingly, the reliability of RBI technology was ver-
ified.13 Park et al. monitored the corrosion state and AE
data of tank bottom in acidic soil and verified the consis-
tency of the AE technology and risk-based method.14,15
Zhang et al. conducted an experiment on AE monitoring
of tank bottom in a laboratory condition. He analyzed the
emission signals collected in the experiment and obtained
the AE characteristics during tank bottom corrosion pro-
cess under different working conditions. A corrosion detec-
tion mechanism was provided with improved reliability in
AE testing and evaluation field.16 Yu et al. claimed that in
some circumstances, the types of corrosion AE signal of the
tank bottom are unknown. He thus proposed a weighted
fuzzy clustering recognition method to distinguish corro-
sion types with each other. Nearest neighbor method was
used for optimizing initial clustering. The data redistribu-
tion is adjusted with the weighted distance between the
gravity and center. The experimental result shows that the
detection accuracy increases by about 9%.17
Although some achievements have been made both in
research and in application, the AE method can only be
used for qualitative evaluation. Other detection methods,
such as MFL testing,18,19 can effectively quantitatively
evaluate corrosion defects. However, it usually causes
unnecessary tank opening, which may result in over main-
tenance of storage tanks, affecting the normal operation.
The deficits of both methods greatly encourage the pro-
posal of our health analysis framework.
The rest of the article is organized as follows: The
“Overall framework for tank bottom health analysis” sec-
tion gives an overview of our tank bottom health analysis
framework. The “Preliminary health evaluation” section
introduces the preliminary health evaluation. The “Residual
life prediction based on AE and corrosion risk pace” section
illustrates the accurate diagnosis. The “Case study” section
presents a case study to verify our proposed framework. The
“Conclusion” section concludes the article.
Overall framework for tank bottom health
analysis
In this article, a two-stage health state analysis method for
tank bottom is proposed. In the first stage, a preliminary
health evaluation of tank bottom is made: firstly, a scien-
tific risk evaluation metric system for tank bottom corro-
sion is established based on expert experience and failure
analysis. Then, the weights of evaluation metrics are deter-
mined by combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
and the entropy method. Finally, fuzzy comprehensive eva-
luation is adopted to give health status. The preliminary
evaluation result in the first stage determines whether a
subsequent remaining useful life (RUL) prediction is
required. If the tank bottom is in good condition, it is unne-
cessary to carry out AE testing so as to save tank mainte-
nance costs. If the tank bottom is not in good condition, the
second stage is carried out to make accurate diagnosis. We
establish a quantitative evaluation model based on the his-
torical experimental data collected through AE testing and
MFL testing. Then, the AE experiment is implemented and
the result is used to estimate the corrosion rate and predict
the RUL of storage tank. The overall framework for tank
bottom health analysis is shown in Figure 1.
Preliminary health evaluation
Corrosion analysis
Preliminary health evaluation reflects the current operating
status of tanks, hence it is extremely significant to establish
a system of evaluation metrics to give an accurate, credible,
and objective evaluation result, which is also a guarantee
for the long-term effective operations of oil tanks. To estab-
lish the risk metric system of tank floor corrosion, we first
summarize all types of tank floor corrosion and study the
main influencing factors that cause corrosion.
The corrosion of tank floor mainly consists of two
types: internal corrosion and external corrosion. Internal
corrosion mainly includes atmospheric corrosion and
liquid corrosion, and external corrosion mainly includes
electrochemical corrosion and soil corrosion. The main
factors affecting the corrosion of tank floor are as follows:
1. Sedimentary water at the bottom of tank: Sedimen-
tary water mainly comes from produced fluid, rein-
jection water, condensate water, and rainwater,
which is the main source of the internal liquid cor-
rosion. The corrosivity of sedimentary water usu-
ally differs in terms of its components. The main
Feng et al.
Figure 1. Overall framework of tank bottom health analysis.
influencing factors include pH value, chloride con-
centration, sulfur amount, salinity, and so on. The
pH value determines the corrosion type of tank bot-
tom, especially in strong acid or alkaline environ-
ment, which usually result in a significant increase
in corrosion rate.20 The chloride concentration is the
main factor affecting the corrosion rate of tank bot-
tom.5 Sulfides can be decomposed into corrosive
substances that result in corrosion. The salinity is
mainly affected by the concentration of calcium and
magnesium. When the concentration is too high, it
will promote the formation of local cell corrosion.
At the same time, calcium and magnesium can
increase the conductivity of water, thus accelerating
the corrosion rate.
2. Gas effect: Due to the constantly rising and falling of
liquid level in the tank, a certain amount of air will be
mixed into the tank. Hydrogen sulfide gas has the
greatest impact on tank bottom corrosion, which can
dissolve in water to form acid that has very high cor-
rosivity.21 At the same time, hydrogen sulfide gas is
the catalyst for cathodic reduction of tank bottom,
which can promote the absorption of hydrogen in
reduction reaction and further deteriorate corrosion.
3. Production factors: In daily production, the opera-
tion of the tank’s charging and discharging will
cause the fluctuation of the fluid in the tank, and
turbulence may form inside the tank. Turbulence
can cause ups and downs of tank bottom, which can
abrade the corrosion-resistant coating on the inner
surface of tank bottom and form a corrosion
source.22 At the same time, a series of cleaning
operations of the tank will continuously scour the
tank bottom, and the membrane layer at some
3
positions of the bottom will be destroyed, resulting
in oxygen concentration cell.
4. Mechanical factors: The fluctuation of the fluid in
the tank can make the bottom bear additional vibra-
tion and impact loads, which will cause the vibra-
tion damage of the tank bottom, leading to crevice
corrosion and pitting corrosion.
Evaluation metric system
Based on the detailed analysis of the corrosion mechanism
of tank bottom in the previous section, this section tries to
establish a scientific, effective, and standardized evaluation
metric system, as shown in Table 1.
Evaluation method
Weight derivation and modification. After health evaluation
model has been constructed, we need to assign weights for
different evaluation metrics. The weight determination of
evaluation metrics is an important part for reflecting the
health status of tank bottom. AHP and entropy weight
method are widely used in similar problems. However, AHP
is strongly based on subjective opinions of experts, while
entropy weight method does not work well when data are not
sufficient. In this article, we applying Bayes theorem and
combine these two methods to overcome their deficiencies.
First, a priori value of metric weights are adopted through
AHP method, then the entropy information of feedback data
is taken to calculate posterior value of metric weights.
If we model the weights of evaluation metrics as prob-
ability distribution, we hope that we can estimate the dis-
tribution through experts’ knowledge when the amount of
4 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

Table 1. Tank bottom risk evaluation metric system.

First-level metrics Second-level metrics Third-level metrics Fourth-level metrics

Tank bottom quality Tank bottom Steel plate characteristics
Steel plate thickness
Construction quality Plate arrangement
Docking
Welding
Installation
Tank foundation Foundation taper
Asphaltic sands anticorrosive quality
Settlement of foundation
Internal corrosion Internal circumstance Corrosive medium pH value
Sulfur content
Nitrogen content
Chloride content
Mineralization
Air content
Medium temperature Crude oil temperature
Tank heating device
Corrosion inhibitor Inhibitor type
Inhibitor concentration
Coating protection Coating material
Working life
Construction quality
Cathodic protection Sacrificial anode material
Protection current
Protection area
Operating process Medium turbulence
Medium fluctuation
Tank cleaning
External corrosion External circumstance Soil corrosiveness pH value
Water content
Salinity
Soil resistivity
Water contact Rainfall
Asphalt sandstone pad sealing
Exterior drainage
Corrosion inhibitor Inhibitor type
Inhibitor concentration
Coating protection Coating material
Working life
Construction quality
Cathodic protection Sacrificial anode material
Protection current
protection area

data is insufficient. At the same time, with the accumula-
tion of data, the weights of evaluation metrics gradually
adapt to the information in actual data. Finally, when the
amount of data is large enough, the weights of the evalua-
tion metrics can fully reflect the amount of information
provided by each metric.
The process of assigning weights can be understood as
continuous revision of the importance of each metric.
Assume that the weights of the evaluation metrics follow
Dirichlet distribution
aÞ
~*Dirichletð~
w ð1Þ
where w~ ¼ ½w 1 ; w2 ; . . . ; wm  represents the weight vector of
the evaluation metrics, DirichletðÞ denotes the Dirichlet
Distribution, and ~a is the distribution parameter. The dis-
tribution parameter is initialized proportionally to metric
weights derived from AHP method.
There are mainly two reasons why we choose Dirichlet
distribution:
 According to the P practical meaning of metric
m
weights, we have i¼1 wi ¼ 1. Therefore, when
we choose joint distribution of the m metrics, the
sum of expectations of each random variable in joint
Feng et al.
distribution should be equal to 1. The attribute of
Dirichlet distribution perfectly satisfies the require-
ment for joint distribution.
 According to the hypothesis of Bayesian view, prob-
ability itself is a random variable with prior and
posterior distributions. When the condition likeli-
hood function can make the posterior distribution
has the same form with the prior distribution, we say
the distribution is the conjugate prior of the likeli-
hood function. Considering the conjugation of
Dirichlet distribution and polynomial distribution,
we choose the likelihood function of polynomial
distribution and assume the prior distribution as
Dirichlet distribution, then the calculation of prob-
ability posterior distribution will have a good math-
ematical form.
After collecting a certain number of user feedback, we
calculate the entropy weight of each evaluation metrics,
which is denoted as w ^ ¼ ½w ^ 1; w ^ m . If we believe
^ 2; . . . ; w
that the entropy weights of user feedback data reflect the
probability of different results in a multi-distribution and
assume that the amount of feedback data collected by users
is , then the number of times each result occurs is
w^ ¼ ½w ^ 1 ; w ^ m . According to the conjugate
^ 2 ; . . . ; w
distribution theorem, the posterior distribution of evalua-
tion metrics is another Dirichlet distribution
a þ wÞ
~*Dirichletð~
w ^
In conclusion, the proposed weight derivation method
takes the following steps:
1. Assume we are assigning weights to m evaluation
metrics. Use AHP method to obtain their a priori
values w¼w  1; w
 2; . . . ; w
 m , respectively.
2. Choose a proper coefficient l, then initialize the
distribution parameters as ~ a ¼ l w.
3. Collect user feedback data and use entropy method
to calculate evaluation weight values w ^ ¼w
^ 1; w
^ 2;
...;w^ m , respectively.
4. Modify evaluation metric weights:
ai þ w
~i
~i ¼
w ð3Þ
ai þ 
Health evaluation. After the weights of evaluation model are
derived and modified, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation
method is adopted to compute reputation. The values of
every evaluation metric are collected and calculated. Our
health evaluation method is conducted as follows: First, for
both quantitative and qualitative metrics, the membership
functions of every evaluation metric are figured out accord-
ing to a predetermined limitation. The single metric mem-
bership degree can be integrated to get the evaluating
matrix. Then, according to the weights of evaluation
5
metrics, the evaluation matrices of abstract levels are cal-
culated. Finally, we determine the health status of tank
bottom based on the rule of maximum degree of member-
ship. More detailed explanation of the method is demon-
strated in the “Case study” section.
Residual life prediction based on acoustic
emission and corrosion risk pace
AE technology
AE detection technology is widely employed across the
world because it can dynamically detect and analyze stor-
age tanks. Compared with other nondestructive methods,
the special characteristic of AE is that it does not affect
daily production. When corrosion or leakage happens, the
load of the tank will change, and the energy will be released
in the form of elastic wave to generate AE signals. The
sensors on the tank are set to receive the signals that exceed
the threshold. The signals are then transformed into char-
acteristic parameters through feature extraction circuit.
Among them, ring-down count can effectively reflect the
intensity of AE activity, as well as the corrosion status. AE
activity represents the frequency of AE events. It can be
calculated by dividing the hit count of all channels per unit
time by the number of channels. The AE activity can be
employed to predict the RUL of tank bottom.
ð2Þ
Corrosion risk pace
In this article, the concept of risk is introduced to model
tank bottom corrosion. Corrosion risk pace (CRP) is a sci-
entific risk assessment method that makes use of the test
result of MFL testing. CRP represents the average corro-
sion rate of tank bottom, which can reflect the health status
of the most active corrosion area. Let xi denote the corro-
sion reduction at a certain location of tank bottom,
FðhÞ ¼ CPDðxi  hÞ denote the probability of corrosion
depth that exceeds h (mm), then ln FðhÞ  ln h is defined
as the risk curve of tank bottom corrosion. Since prelimi-
nary health evaluation has been made, we assume that the
storage tank is at the latter part of its life, and the gradient at
the tail of the curve is
@ ln F @F=F
D¼ ¼ ð4Þ
@ ln h @h=h
We can conclude from the above formula that
1 @F
@h ¼  h ð5Þ
D F
Assume that the corrosion increment of the region where
corrosion depth is greater than h can be illustrated as
follows
@F ¼ kFDt ð6Þ
6 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

where k represents the corrosion rate, which can be consid- Table 2. Magnetic flux leakage detection data of experimental
ered to remain unchanged during the corrosion process. storage tanks.
From the above formulas, it can be concluded that the Thinning (mm) Cumulative counts Cumulative probability
corrosion depth increases along with time has the following
form 3.66 1 0.0000
  3.60 3 0.0002
k t 3.54 4. 0.0003
hðtÞ ¼ h^ 1  e D ð7Þ .. .. ..
. .
2.46
.. 150 .. 0.0100
..
where h^ is the statistical expectation of corrosion depth . . .
near the current location. It is concluded that the corrosion 0.78 10,411 0.7001
rate of the current position is as follows 0.72 11,872 0.7983
  0.66 13,253 0.8912
 @hðtÞ  k h^ 0.65 14,872 1
 
 @t  ¼ D ð8Þ
t¼0

For the current corrosion area, we set the cumulative

probability as 0.001 and calculate h. ^ If k remains
unchanged, the corrosion thinning rate at a certain time,
that is, the CRP of the bottom plate is
h^ 0:001
CRP ¼
Dy
where h^ 0:001 is the corrosion depth of tank bottom when the
cumulative probability on the risk curve is 0.001, D is the
absolute value of gradient at the tail of the risk curve, and y
is the service time of the tank.
Table 3. Corrosion risk pace of experimental storage tanks.
Tank number CRP (m, m/year)
1 350.2
2 311.1
ð9Þ 3 167.5
4 615.0
5 181.3
6 422.3
7 60.2
8 729.3
9 299.2
10 111.7

CRP: corrosion risk pace.

Residual life prediction
AE activity can reflect the corrosion of tank bottom to a
certain extent, so we try to establish a quantitative model
between AE activity and risk corrosion rate. In this article,
we assume that there is an approximate linear relationship
between AE activity and risk corrosion rate CRP.
Firstly, we apply MFL testing to 10 experimental stor-
age tanks and recognize the defects at the tank bottom. The
number of bottom defects in storage tanks with different
corrosion degrees was counted, and the cumulative prob-
ability distribution of bottom thinning at different locations
was obtained. The risk curve of each experimental storage
tank was drawn. One of the tanks has been served for 6
years, and the data of MFL detection are presented in
Table 2.
According to the risk curve, the absolute value of gra-
dient at the tail is 0.9709. Then, the CRP of the tank is
2:46
CRP ¼ ¼ 0:4223 mm=year
0:9709  6
Similarly, the CRP of each tank is calculated using their
risk curves, namely c 1 ; c 2 ; . . . ; cn , respectively. The results
are presented in Table 3.
Then, we carry out AE testing on these experimental
tanks, the AE signals were analyzed and evaluated, the
ring-down count of each channel is collected, and the AE
activity of each tank bottom is calculated, namely
a1 ; a2 ; . . . ; an , respectively. The results are presented in
Table 4.
In Figure 2, we plot the AE activity and CRP with
respect to the data of all experimental tanks, and the scatter
plots are linearly fitted: c ¼ 0:9402a.
When predicting the RUL of an actual storage tank, the
AE activity of the tank is obtained through AE testing, then
the CRP of the tank bottom is calculated based on the quan-
titative relationship curve acquired before. According to the
location of the tank, the medium in the tank, the foundation of
the tank, the environmental temperature, and the anticorro-
sion measures, the computed CRP was quantitatively modi-
fied.23–25 In addition, past experiences show that for crude oil
storage tanks, when the average CRP is 0.05–0.125 mm/year,
the CRP of the most serious part is 0.6 mm/year. For gasoline,
kerosene, naphtha, and diesel oil tanks, when the average
CRP is 0.05–0.25 mm/year, the corrosion rate of the most
ð10Þ
serious part is 0.4 mm/year. Therefore, we can conclude that
the CRP at the most serious location of tank bottom is about
12 times that of average CRP.
Let CMP ¼ 12CRP, assume that the nominal thickness
of the bottom is d and the minimum allowable thickness of
the tank is d min (stipulated in API 653-2009),26 then the
corrosion margin D ¼ ðd  d min Þ mm, the remaining use-
ful life of the tank is
Feng et al. 7

Table 4. Acoustic emission result of experimental storage tanks.

Hits of each channel

Tank number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 AE activity (hits/ch)

1 234 781 121 392 73 21 624 411 370 265 329.2
2 16 468 866 618 384 314 104 506 91 338 370.5
3 48 325 689 179 12 102 156 198 84 26 181.9
4 994 891 832 659 772 118 624 795 10 556 625.1
5 123 268 311 15 306 214 183 165 135 199 191.9
6 658 762 549 219 371 344 102 673 596 466 474
7 57 104 81 32 9 18 29 95 71 84 58
8 887 925 684 841 427 655 737 973 892 856 787.7
9 319 286 47 469 115 375 328 299 516 285 303.9
10 23 97 159 84 121 128 207 57 164 204 124.4
AE: acoustic emission.

Suppose that the membership matrix of foundation taper,

asphalt sand anticorrosive quality, and settlement of foun-
dation is as follows
2 3
0:089 0:201 0:398 0:209 0:103
6 7
R 3 ¼ 4 0:121 0:204 0:403 0:200 0:072 5
0:133 0:320 0:317 0:192 0:032

Each row in the matrix represents the probability that

Figure 2. Relationship between AE activity and CRP. AE: acoustic
emission; CRP: corrosion risk pace.
d  d min
RUL ¼ ð11Þ
CMP
Case study
In this section, we take an actual storage tank as an example
to verify our proposed method. Firstly, a preliminary health
analysis of the tank bottom is carried out. Assume that the
metric weights of tank bottom quality can be obtained as
presented in Table 5.
The corresponding membership function is set for each
evaluation metric in the table in advance, and the corre-
sponding membership matrix is calculated. Then, the eva-
luation matrices of different levels are calculated from
bottom to top, and the final evaluation grade is obtained
using the principle of maximum membership degree.
three third-level indicators belong to the five grades of
“extremely poor,” “poor,” “medium,” “good,” and “very
good.” Then, the membership degree of tank foundation
can be calculated as follows:
R2 ¼ ½ 0:25 0:12 0:63   R3
¼ ½ 0:121 0:276 0:348 0:197 0:054 
Similarly, the overall health status of the tank bottom
can be evaluated, and the final conclusion is that the tank
bottom is in a “medium” health level. The second step is to
predict the remaining life of the tank based on the data.
After online detection of AE for storage tanks, the data of
AE are presented in Table 6.
The AE activity of the tank bottom is calculated:
a ¼ 482:2 hits=ch. The risk corrosion rate of the tank is
calculated based on the quantitative relationship curve
obtained before: CRP ¼ 0:038 mm=year. Taking into
account the geographical location, tank medium, tank foun-
dation, environmental temperature, and anticorrosion mea-
sures, we calculate the modified risk corrosion rate
according to the national standard: CMP ¼ 0:038
12 ¼ 0:456 mm=year. Since the nominal wall thickness
of the tank bottom (d) is equal to 6 mm and the minimum
allowable thickness of the tank bottom (dmin) is equal to
1.27 mm, the remaining life of the tank is calculated as
follows
d  d min
RUL ¼ ¼ 10:37 year ð12Þ
CMP
8 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
Table 5. An example of weight derivation for evaluating metrics.
First-level metrics Second-level metrics
Tank bottom quality Tank bottom: 0.63
Tank foundation: 0.37
Table 6. The AE data of testing tank bottom.
Channel AE hits
1 453
2 519
3 34
4 699
5 537
6 484
7 392
8 620
9 556
10 528
AE: acoustic emission.
Conclusion
During the past decades, a large number of new oil storage
tanks have been installed in China. Under this circum-
stance, careful inspection is extremely important, espe-
cially for those aging facilities. Corrosion detection and
health analysis of large storage tank bottom can prevent
the occurrence of catastrophic accidents and help provide
maintenance strategies, which can bring huge economic
benefits to actual production. Traditional tank detection
methods are usually carried out offline, which require
stopping the regular operation of tank to pour oil and
clean the tank bottom. However, nearly 80% of tank
openings turn out to be waste of manpower, financial
resources, and time.
To effectively solve the above issue, in this article, we
propose a two-stage corrosion analysis and RUL prediction
method for large storage tank bottom. The main contribu-
tions of this work are:
1. The main influencing factors of tank bottom corro-
sion are systematically analyzed, and the health sta-
tus evaluating metric system of tank bottom is
established.
2. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is
employed to make preliminary diagnosis, which
determines whether a quantitative analysis is
required.
Third-level metrics Fourth-level metrics
Steel plate characteristics: 0.28
Steel plate thickness: 0.21
Construction quality: 0.51 Plate arrangement: 0.19
Docking: 0.21
Welding: 0.28
Installation: 0.32
Foundation taper: 0.25
Asphaltic sands anticorrosive quality: 0.12
Settlement of foundation: 0.63
3. The quantitative model between AE activity and cor-
rosion rate of storage tanks is established through AE
and MFL testing of experimental storage tanks.
4. Based on Chinese national standard, the RUL of
storage tanks is predicted by combining AE with
RBI technology.
5. A comprehensive case study is conducted to show
the feasibility of our approach.
In the future, we plan to collect more AE data and add
multiple features to build a more complicated model.
According to the characteristics of collected data, we are
going to apply deep learning or sequence learning mechan-
isms to our research, which is expected to improve the
accuracy of RUL prediction.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:
This work was supported by the National Key R & D Program of
China [no. 2018YFF0214705]: Management and Control Sys-
tem of Health Status for Typical Industrial Equipment Driven by
Big Data.
ORCID iD
Biqing Huang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5600-7055
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