MFL inspection/Intelligent Pigging/ Inline Inspection/ Corrosion Detection

• Typically pipelines transporting and operating at high pressure and passing through various places, Cities, Villages needs to be inspected for its safety. These pipelines are piggable pipelines and are inspected using various tools. Typically most of the pipelines uses MFL(Magnetic Flus Leakage ) technology for inspecting these pipelines for monitoring corrosion and any external damage to the pipeline. We offer range of tools for inspecting pipelines and also provide FFP (Fitness for Purpose) which means safe operation of the pipeline.
• The purpose of using these Intelligent pigs is to identify any type of Metal loss/Corrosion in the pipeline which can cause the pipeline to fail.
We offer complete solution in association with our technology partner who provides us tool, and data analysis with reports. We help customer here to identify technology required, asses the condition of the pipeline, provide them with solution as to what is the best technology required to inspect their pipelines. We can support for the tolls ranging from 4” to 48”
• We have 18+ years of experience in running Inline inspection projects, tools, technology and related work, We also have experienced engineers with 10+ years of experience in running tools, data analysis and reporting as well.
• We also have technical support for providing Fitness For Purpose report after the Intelligent pigging is carried out and report is provided. We can provide FFP report based on Intelligent pigging report and data and can provide recommendation for repairs based on the intelligent pigging data.
• We also offer onsite dig verification services post Intelligent pigging report. This helps the Pipeline operators to verify the report provided by Intelligent pigging and compare result with actual finding on site. This helps customer to actually make a decision on the repairs to be carried out.
• We are based out of Vadodara and can provide with complete solution from feasibility study, pipeline cleaning, Geometry inspection , MFL/Intelligent Pigging, Onsite Dig Verification, FFP reports and repair recommendation.

Typically, an MFL tool consists of two or more bodies. One body is the magnetizer with the magnets and sensors and the other bodies contain the electronics and batteries. The magnetizer body houses the sensors that are located between powerful "rare-earth" magnets. The magnets are mounted between the brushes and tool body to create a magnetic circuit along with the pipe wall. As the tool travels along the pipe, the sensors detect interruptions in the magnetic circuit. Interruptions are typically caused by metal loss and which in most cases is corrosion and the dimensions of the potential metal loss is denoted previously as "feature." Other features may be manufacturing defects and not actual corrosion. The feature indication or "reading" includes its length by width by depth as well as the o'clock position of the anomaly/feature. Mechanical damage such as shovel gouges can also be detected.

An MFL tool can take sensor readings based on either the distance the tool travels or on increments of time. The choice depends on many factors such as the length of the run, the speed that the tool intends to travel, and the number of stops or outages that the tool may experience.

The second body is called an Electronics Can. This section can be split into a number of bodies depending on the size of the tool. This can, as the name suggests, contains the electronics or "design of the smart pig. The Electronics Can also contains the batteries and is some cases an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) to tie location information to GPS coordinates. On the very rear of the tool are odometer wheels that travel along the inside of the pipeline to measure the distance and speed of the tool.

Estimation of corrosion growth rate

High-resolution MFL tools collect data approximately every 2 mm along the axis of a pipe and this superior resolution allows for a comprehensive analysis of collected signals. Pipeline Integrity Management programs have specific intervals for inspecting pipeline segments and by employing high-resolution MFL tools an exceptional corrosion growth analysis can be conducted. This type of analysis proves extremely useful in forecasting the inspection intervals.

Other features that an MFL tool can identify

Although primarily used to detect corrosion, MFL tools can also be used to detect features that they were not originally designed to identify. When an MFL tool encounters a geometric deformity such as a dent, wrinkle or buckle, a very distinct signal is created due to the plastic deformation of the pipe wall.

Crack detection

There are cases where large non-axial oriented cracks have been found in a pipeline that was inspected by a magnetic flux leakage tool. To an experienced MFL data analyst, a dent is easily recognizable by trademark "horseshoe" signal in the radial component of the vector field. What is not easily identifiable to an MFL tool is the signature that a crack leaves.