• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.42-47
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• 2010

Recently, many techniques have been developed for the inspection of pipelines using guided waves. However, few researches have been made on the application of those techniques for buried underground pipes. Guided wave motions in the buried pipes are somewhat different from those of on-ground pipes which have traction-free (air) boundary condition on outer pipe walls and thus are strongly affected by the mechanical property of the surrounding soils. Therefore, it should be investigated the effect of soil properties on the guided wave behavior in buried pipe. On the other hand, the mechanical property of soil is largely depending on its moisture conditions nevertheless of other influential factors such as void ratio. In this study, the effect of moisture conditions in soils on mode attenuation of guided waves in the buried pipe is investigated. To this end, numerical study is performed to characterize mode attenuation behavior in buried pipes and the effective mode which is suitable for long range inspection is identified.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.539-547
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• 2010

In this study, characteristics of the fundamental longitudinal guided wave mode, L(0,1), which is a usual mode employed in the inspection of the above-ground pipe, of the buried pipe were numerically investigated considering property changes in the surrounding soil. Results showed that soil conditions are significantly affecting the attenuation of L(0,1) mode in the pipe embedded in soil. Especially, if the soil is partially saturated, the attenuation of L(0,1) mode is larger and is very similar regardless of the degree of water saturation in the surrounding soil. However, when the soil is fully saturated, the attenuation of L(0,1) mode is less and show different trend with its partially saturated counterparts.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.364-371
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• 2003

In this paper, a review of the current status, on the use of long range cylindrically guided wave modes, and their interaction with cracks and corrosion damage in pipe-like structures will be discussed. Applications of cylindrically guided ultrasonic wave modes have been developed for inspection of corrosion damage in pipelines at chemical plants, flow-accelerated corrosion damage (wall thinning) in feedwater piping, and circumferential stress corrosion cracks in PWR steam generator tubes. It has been demonstrated that this inspection technique can be employed on a variety of piping geometries (diameters from 1 in. to 3 ft, and wall thickness from 0.1 to 6 in.) and a propagation distance of 100 meters or more is sometimes feasible. This technique can also be used in the inspection of inaccessible or buried regions of pipes and tubes.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.36-40
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• 2010

The ultrasonic guided wave propagates along with the given structure's wall direction. Because of this specific character, the ultrasonic guided waves arc used in many other fields. Especially, it can be readily utilized for nondestructive inspection of various structures that are made up of gas pipes, heat exchanger tubes, and thin plates. Further, the guided wave technology can be readily utilized when inspecting pipes or thin plates which pose high risk of the accident but for which the nondestructive inspection itself is impossible because it is difficult to get to them since they are coated or buried underground. In the other hand, conventional ultrasonic testing such as thickness gauging uses bulk waves and only tests the region of structure immediately below the transducer. As a result of the application about inlet and outlet cooling water line using guided wave test, we conformed that the overall corrosions were in the lower side of the 304.8 mm inlet valve and these corrosions were engaged in not locally but through the lower side of the valve line. In the near future, we can expect that the detectable defect size is smaller than before along with the development of the sensing technology.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.36-41
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• 2011

If gas is leaking out of gas pipelines, it could cause a huge explosion. Accordingly, it is important to ensure the integrity of gas pipelines. Traditionally, over the years, gas-operating companies have used the ILI system, which is based on axial magnetic flux leakage (MFL), to inspect the gas pipelines. Relatively, there is a low probability of detection (POD) for the axial defects with the axial MFL-based ILI. To prevent the buried pipeline from corrosion, it requires a protective coating. In addition to the potential damage to the coating by environmental factors and external forces, there could be defects on the damaged coating area. Thus, it is essential that nondestructive evaluation methods for detecting axial defects (axial cracks, axial groove) and damaged coating be developed. In this study, an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) sensor was designed and fabricated for detecting axial defects and coating disbondment. In order to validate the performances of the developed EMAT sensor, experiments were performed with specimens from axial cracks, axial grooves, and coating disbondment. The experimental results showed that the developed EMAT sensor could detect not only the axial cracks (minimum 5% depth of wall thickness) and axial grooves (minimum 10% depth of wall thickness), but also the coating disbondment.