A New Sensor for Pipe Inspection by Lamb Waves

Dongshan Guo, Tribikram Kundu

Research output: Contribution to specialist publicationArticle

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Efficient inspection for internal damage of long pipelines in the chemical and power industries is a challenging task. It becomes even more difficult if the pipes are coated with insulating materials. With traditional methods insulation coatings are removed at selected places and the pipe wall thicknesses at these spots are measured using ultrasonic transducers. A sudden drop in the pipe wall thickness indicates the possibility of corrosion damage. This is a time consuming and expensive operation. The lamb wave inspection technique proposed in this paper is a much more efficient technique because it allows long pipes to be inspected by removing insulation at only few places. One can detect anomalies inside the pipe wall at a specific depth by correctly selecting a lamb mode and propagating that mode through the pipe. This technique is described in this paper. A new sensor has been designed and fabricated for efficiently generating different lamb modes in the pipe. Sensitivity of the lamb modes to different types of anomalies in the pipe has been investigated.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages991-994
Number of pages4
Volume58
No8
Specialist publicationMaterials Evaluation
StatePublished - Aug 2000

Keywords

  • Guided wave
  • Lamb wave
  • Nondestructive testing
  • Petrochemical equipment maintenance
  • Pipe inspection
  • Piping
  • Stress wave
  • Ultrasonic testing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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