Measurement of pipe wall thickness using magnetic flux leakage signals
AssigneeWilliam Marsh Rice University
InventorsSushant Madhukul Dutta, Fathi Hassan Ghorbel
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Abstract
An apparatus comprising a processor configured to implement a method comprising obtaining a pipe profile comprising a diameter, a nominal thickness, and a material, receiving a magnetic flux leakage (MFL) indication for a pipe associated with the pipe profile, and determining a wall thickness for the pipe using the pipe profile and the MFL indication. Also disclosed is a method comprising modeling an apparatus comprising a magnet configured to induce a magnetic field in a pipe, and determining a wall thickness measurement (WTM) for the pipe using a model of the apparatus and the pipe, a detected MFL signal, and a simulated MFL signal.
Claims20
An apparatus comprising:
- a processor configured to:
- obtain a pipe profile comprising a diameter, a nominal thickness, and a material;
- receive a magnetic flux leakage (MFL) indication for a pipe associated with the pipe profile;
- and
- determine a wall thickness for the pipe using the pipe profile, the MFL indication, and a simulated MFL indication that matches the MFL indication,
- wherein the simulated MFL indication is obtained from a purely mathematical model of the apparatus and a tuning factor that modifies the purely mathematical model of the apparatus.
A method comprising:
- obtaining a plurality of simulated magnetic flux leakage (MFL) signals using a model of an apparatus comprising a magnet configured to induce a magnetic field in a pipe;
- and
- calibrating the plurality of simulated MFL signals using a measured MFL signal for only one sample pipe that has a known wall thickness and comprises a known material,
- wherein the apparatus is configured to determine a plurality of wall thickness measurements (WTMs) for a plurality of pipes that have different wall thicknesses and different material properties using the calibrated simulated MFL signals without additional calibration, and
- wherein the apparatus is configured to determine the WTM for one of the pipes that has an unknown wall thickness using a detected MFL signal for the pipe and one of the calibrated simulated MFL signals that matches the detected MFL signal.
An apparatus comprising:
- a magnet;
- a core coupled to the magnet;
- a sensor system coupled to the magnet, the core, or both, and configured to detect a magnetic flux leakage (MFL) signal from a pipe;
- and
- a processor coupled to the sensor system and configured to calculate a wall thickness measurement (WTM) for the pipe using the MFL signal and a mathematical model of the magnet and the core comprising a simulated MFL signal that matches to the MFL signal
- wherein the MFL signal used to calculate the wall thickness for the pipe consists essentially of an axial component of the MFL signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.