Corrosion Monitoring of Fixed Assets by

Use of Permanently Mounted Sensors

Art Leach – Technical Manager
Thomas Swihart – Commercial Leader, Americas
GE Inspection Technologies
Lewistown, PA & Sugar Land, TX
Presenters
Art Leach is the Ultrasonic Products Technical Manager at GE Inspection
Technologies, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania.
He has worked for Krautkramer/Agfa/GE within the NDT business for 31 years. He
has focused his expertise in the Oil & Gas NDT market for the past 20 years. He has
been involved with GE’s Rightrax Permanently Mounted Sensor technology for the
past 3 years and has worked on several multi-scaled worldwide projects.
Art holds an electronics degree from the Ohio Institute of Technology and is
currently enrolled in the B.A. program at Penn State.

Thomas M. Swihart is the Commercial Leader, Americas, at GE Inspection

Technologies, in Sugar Land, Texas.
He has worked in the Oil & Gas markets - Upstream, Refining, and Chemicals;
specializing in Instrumentation & Control, and Sales & Marketing, for 29 years. He
has been involved with GE’s Rightrax Permanently Mounted Sensor technology
since coming to GE, and has worked on several multi-scaled projects in the
Western Hemisphere.
Tom holds a B.Ch.E. from Georgia Tech.
Improved Monitoring of Assets – Onshore & Offshore

 In this presentation:

 Permanently Installed Sensors provide Cost Effective and

Updated Solutions to Conventional Ultrasonic Thickness
Measurement Techniques

 We have utilized Sources / Information from:

 An IOC Refinery in North America

 An NOC Refinery in North America

 An IOC operating Offshore platforms in the North Sea

 An IOC operating Offshore platforms in the S. China Sea

 On a pipeline operated by an IOC in Central Europe

 On pipelines of a regional gas distribution company in North America

 Current Technology
Intrusive Methods
•Weight Loss Coupons-corrosion is determined
from the weight loss over time using electrical
sensors such as:
• ER (electrical resistance)
• LPR (Linear polarization resistance)
•Shortcomings
• Indirect measurements
• Difficult to define/evaluate the real condition and affects of
corrosion
• Global evaluation of corrosion process; not specific location
of the pipe or asset

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 Current Technologies
Non-Intrusive Methods
•Most common known technique to
monitor thickness is Ultrasonic
•Instrument is calibrated to achieve
material sound velocity
•Material Thickness is calculated by the time of
flight (TOF)
•The volumetric measurement can be taken in
service
•May be possible to measure pipe with High
Temperature Surface Coatings
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 Other Methodologies to
gather Wall Loss data
Hydrogen Flux
• Field Signature Method
• RSM
• Metal Mass Loss Method
• Ring Pair
• Hydrogen Flux

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 Driving Forces for Installed
Monitoring Systems
• Corrosion monitoring, inspection and management – may be
managed via RBI and Inspection
– Not Predictive nor Dynamic (on-line)
• Methodology focuses on detection where paradigm shift is for
predictive systems
• Technologies based on intrusive methods and indirect
measurement of remaining wall thickness
– Provides data on corrosion rate of the fluid but do not
provide accurate data on wall thickness
– Example: Metal loss in corrosion coupon - indicative of the
metal loss in pipes…not reliable thickness…may lead to
chemical use that is not optimized
• Potential Savings of 20-25% of annual cost of corrosion at a
single location

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 Installed Sensors

• Ultrasonic Sensors
– Permanently (semi-permanently) affixed
to piping, vessels or tank walls
– Glued (adhesive) in place
– Mechanically clamped in place

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Improved Measurement Stability
over Manual Ultrasonic
Inspection Techniques
– Taking the measurements at exact same
location
– Constant probe coupling
– Stable waveforms at Temperature
– Stable waveforms = Stable Measurements!

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 Thickness Measurement
Variations
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Upstream Applications
Key Features
•Up to 250F / 120 C
•Non Intrusive
•ATEX Certified Safe Systems/Solution Available
•Alarmed
•Resolution= 0.001”
•Repeatability= 0.002”

Applications
•Material Erosion + General Corrosion
•Erosion on Flow Lines / Risers / Injection Lines
•Manned / Unmanned platforms / FPSO‟s

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Mid Stream Applications
Key Features
•Corrosion & Erosion
•Variable accuracy of manual inspections
•Productivity
•Where low percentage of pipelines are
“piggable”
•High cost of inspections / excavation
•Resolution= 0.001”
•Repeatability= 0.002”

Applications
•Buried Pipelines -Tank Walls & Roofs -LNG
Terminals-Ship to Shore Pipelines
•Above Ground Pipelines-Corrosive NG, Wet
Gas, Unconventional Gas-CBM, Shale Gas, etc.
•Excellent compliment to pig inspection runs,
cathodic protection, and area inspection using 12
alternate methodologies
Downstream Applications
Key Features
•Up to 660 F / 350 C and 932 F / 500 C
•Non Intrusive
•Various Pipe Diameters
•Intrinsically Safe Systems/Solution Available
•System Resolution = 0.0001”
•System Repeatability = 0.0002”

Applications
•General Corrosion & Erosion in High
Temperature Crude Lines, other Chemical
Lines, etc., within facilities
•Critical & Hard-to-Reach Locations due to
temperature, environment
•Enables detection of high Total Acid Number
(TAN) corrosion
•Response time / data points to control
chemical corrosion inhibitors influencing 13
production
 Downstream Refining Corrosion
Monitoring Holy Grail: The Transfer Function

Crude
Quality
+ Chemical
Inhibitors
+ Operating
Temperature
+ Aging
Assets
+ Fluid
Dynamics

All influence
Wall Thickness
Loss

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Intrinsically Safe
HT Intrinsically Safe Zone Areas
•System can accommodate up to 32 CMX-HT nodes

•RS485 serial cable interface with nodes

•I.S. barrier system make the solution Intrinsically safe

Coax cable RS485

Max 5m Max 600m
(Max 16Ft) (Max 2000Ft)

Node
Sensor CMX-HT PC
interface

Sensor CMX-HT

•Inside the Hazardous area •Safe area

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Various Applications=Various
Solutions
Low High
Temperature Temperature

Manual Automated Manual Automated

Data Data
Logger SCADA Logger
System

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Installations and Clamping
Systems
Clamping Evolution
Key Features
•Chain Clamp System on 30” Pipe

Applications
•General Corrosion in High Temperature
Lines
•Example: 24 Inch Crude Line
•Critical Locations-High Temperatures
•Enables placement of multiple probes:
•Example: 4 and 8 O‟clock position

•Repositionable
•Example: 24” Crude Line
• Multiple Sensors 19
Clamping Evolution-Small
Diameter
Key Features
•C Clamp Style

Applications
•2-4” Diameter lines and piping
systems
•2” Example
•Repositionable
•4” Example

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Low Temperature Array on
20” Pipe

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I/D Geometry Considerations

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Case Studies
 Offshore Case Study:
Low Temperature Offshore Erosion
Application Key Information
Service Data
•Asset Owner – Large European IOC
•Service Location
•S.E. Asia – Three (3) Unmanned Platforms
•Monitor Erosion on Flow Line Risers
•Eight inch (8”) Lines; 12mm thickness
•Length of service since 2008
System Data
•Low Temperature Sensor Arrays; wired back to local
Control Room (230 ft.) away
•Operational Temperature ~212 F
•Measure to 5mm thickness with VFC dry contact
alarm if threshold thickness value is violated
•Sensors and RS485 serial connector, w/Data logger in
hazardous area (ATEX Zone 1)
•Data sent to RTU system via Modbus 24
 Offshore Case Study:
Low Temperature Offshore Erosion
Application
Key Information
System Data (continued)
•Controller PC in Safe Area Control Room
•Total System powered via Control Room
•Data sent to Onshore Control Room to
analyse and monitor riser wall thickness
•System Design Life = 15 Years
System Products & Cost
•RS485 Connections (wired)
•VFC Connection Alarms
•Data stored locally on CP node daily;
retrieved by Controller PC daily
•Interface Modbus RTU w/ RS485
•Data viewed locally
•Installed cost = US$338,000 (may be less
than three (3) visits to platforms to perform
manual ultrasonic readings) 25
 Pipeline Case Study:
Low Temperature Buried Pipeline Corrosion
Application
Key Information
Service Data
•Asset Owners – Large Transcontinental Pipeline Partners
•Service Location
•Central Europe
•Monitor Internal Corrosion on >470 mile Buried
Crude Oil Pipeline
•Multiple measurement locations along pipeline
•High/Low Temperature Extremes
•Length of service since 2008
System Data
•Low Temperature Sensor Arrays hard wired back to surface >16 ft.
•Portable Data loggers
•Measured thickness values downloaded to PC running software
•Data retrieved and reviewed as required locally for trend analysis
•System Design Life = 25 Years
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 Mid Stream:
Low Temperature Buried Pipeline Corrosion
Application
Key Information
Advantages
•Reduces Costs with Equipment
•No need for outside service (civil works
projects) to excavate/inspect/monitor
corrosion points after installation
•No maintenance required
•Selectable time and location remote data
management
•Reduces Costs associated with
Operations/Production
•Reduces Environmental Risk
•Prevents failures / unscheduled shutdowns
•Increased inspections w/o additional expense
•System used as tool in RBI plan
•Increases data to available to outside
Inspection Authorities 27
Excavation of Pipeline
Prior to Installation

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Sensor mounted to
bottom of pipe

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Pipe Wrapped and Backfilled

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 Easy Interrogation of
Underground Sensor(s) from
above surface

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 Refining Case Study:
Low Temperature Refining Corrosion
Application
Key Information
Service Data
•Asset Owners – Refinery
•Service Location
•Alky Unit
•Hydrofluoric Acid Cooling / Shell & Tube Heat
Exchanger
•Measurement at 8 O„Clock Position of Shell
•New in 2009
System Data
•Low Temperature Sensor Arrays and approx. 12 ft. extension cables,
hard wired down to access deck approx. 8 ft.
•Portable Data logger
•Measured thickness values downloaded to PC running software
•Data retrieved and reviewed on a weekly basis
•System Design Life = +5 Years due to location in Refinery
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Tie Thickness Changes to
changes in the Process

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 Refinery Case Study:
High Temperature Refining Corrosion
Application
Key Information
Service Data
•Asset Owners – Refinery
•Service Location
•Crude Unit
•Heat Exchanger
•Measurement on 6” elbow
•New in 2010
System Data
•High Temperature Sensor, hard wired down to access deck
approx. 8 ft.
•Standard Ultrasonic Flaw Detector
•Measured thickness value stored in Data logger
•Data retrieved and reviewed on a weekly basis
•System Design Life = +5 Years due to location in Refinery
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 Conclusions
•Lowers Costs
•Increases Asset Integrity
• Damage to Public
• Repair Costs / Loss of Capital Equipment
• Environmental Concerns
•Maximizes Uptime, Minimizes Inspections Costs
• Optimizes Maintenance Schedules
• May provide Systems for predictive/early warning
situations
• Increases Safety at Onshore & Offshore
Locations
•Saves Money
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Questions?