skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Guided wave radiation from a point source in the proximity of a pipe bend

Journal Article · · AIP Conference Proceedings
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4864836· OSTI ID:22263799
;  [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221 (United States)
  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221,USA and Cincinnati NDE, Cincinnati, OH 45244 (United States)
  3. ClampOn AS, 5162 Laksevaag, Bergen, Norway and Cincinnati NDE, Cincinnati, OH 45244 (United States)

Throughout the oil and gas industry corrosion and erosion damage monitoring play a central role in managing asset integrity. Recently, the use of guided wave technology in conjunction with tomography techniques has provided the possibility of obtaining point-by-point maps of wall thickness loss over the entire volume of a pipeline section between two ring arrays of ultrasonic transducers. However, current research has focused on straight pipes while little work has been done on pipe bends which are also the most susceptible to developing damage. Tomography of the bend is challenging due to the complexity and computational cost of the 3-D elastic model required to accurately describe guided wave propagation. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a 2-D anisotropic inhomogeneous acoustic model which represents a generalization of the conventional unwrapping used for straight pipes. The shortest-path ray-tracing method is then applied to the 2-D model to compute ray paths and predict the arrival times of the fundamental flexural mode, A0, excited by a point source on the straight section of pipe entering the bend and detected on the opposite side. Good agreement is found between predictions and experiments performed on an 8” diameter (D) pipe with 1.5 D bend radius. The 2-D model also reveals the existence of an acoustic lensing effect which leads to a focusing phenomenon also confirmed by the experiments. The computational efficiency of the 2-D model makes it ideally suited for tomography algorithms.

OSTI ID:
22263799
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1581, Issue 1; Conference: 40. annual review of progress in quantitative nondestructive evaluation, Baltimore, MD (United States), 21-26 Jul 2013, 10. international conference on Barkhausen noise and micromagnetic testing, Baltimore, MD (United States), 21-26 Jul 2013; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English