General Electric Company

Sergio Limon

Ming Gao

Ron Sherstan

Richard Clark McNealy

The method for detecting stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of pipelines, comprising the steps of: identifying pipeline locations and pipeline conditions that are amenable to inspection by a magnetic flux inline tool and by a TFI tool; performing two inspections on the pipeline, one inspection performed using the magnetic flux inline (MFL) tool and an other inspection performed using the TFI tool; aligning signal features resulting from the two inspections; identifying TFI signals occurring above a specified threshold; identifying MFL signals for a section of pipeline corresponding to the identified TFI signals; for the identified TFI signals, determining whether the MFL signals are below a second threshold level; designating the sections of the pipeline corresponding to identified TFI signals above the threshold and below the second threshold as a potential corrosion feature; identifying TFI signals that exceed a defined metal loss percentage; measuring a width and length of the signal features, and if the width and length of the signal feature exceed threshold crack width and length values, designating as a potential corrosion feature section of pipeline corresponding to the identified TFI signals.

Method and apparatus inspecting pipelines using magnetic flux sensors

A method for leak-before-rupture assessment including using a failure assessment diagram (FAD) assessment curve from a crack initiation based FAD analysis to analyze a crack in a material; and using a ductile tearing analysis in conjunction with the FAD assessment curve to detect a crack exhibiting at least one of ductile tearing stability and tearing instability prone to rupture during growth of the crack.

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Bountiful, UT, United States of America

Sergio Limon