International Society for Industrial Process Tomography

Flow Loop Validation of Moving Electrical Tomography Sensor for Pipeline Inspection

O. Lehtikangas*, A. Voutilainen, A. Lehikoinen, A. Nissinen, M. Mononen, J. Hartikainen, J.P. Kaipio and P. Laakkonen

Rocsole Ltd (Kauppakatu 20, 70100 Kuopio, Finland)

^*Email: ossi.lehtikangas@rocsole.com

URL: https://www.rocsole.com

ABSTRACT

Deposition formation inside flowlines and pipelines is a major and growing problem in the oil and gas industry. The optimal use of prevention and remediation tools such as chemical inhibitors and cleaning pigs could lead to major savings due to minimized production problems and optimized pipe cleaning costs. This requires characterization and quantification of the actual deposits inside flowlines and downholes. Recently, a novel intelligent pigging sensor placed inside the pipe has been proposed for pipeline inspection based on “inside-out” electrical tomography. In this sensor, the distribution of electrical properties between the pigging sensor and the pipe wall is estimated based on measurements carried out using electrodes around the sensor. In this study, the next generation sensor moving inside a flow loop is described and test results from flow loop runs are shown. Challenges include the changing position and orientation of the sensor inside the pipe during the measurement. The results show that the sensor is able to measure the thickness of the deposit with good accuracy even when the position of the sensor changes during the measurement.

Keywords deposit monitoring, electrical tomography, flow assurance, pipeline inspection

Industrial Application Oil and gas