The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 12, 2013
Filed:
Dec. 05, 2005
Peter Couchman, Newcastle Upon Tyne, GB;
Peter Couchman, Newcastle Upon Tyne, GB;
PII Limited, Cramlington, GB;
Abstract
In an in-line pipe inspection tool, sensors for inspecting the pipe are mounted on sensor blocks moveable relative to the body of the tool. However, when the sensor blocks move radially to conform to different pipe diameters, the circumferential distances between the sensors changes. To ameliorate the effect of this, the sensor blocks have a shape such that one axial edge of each sensor block circumferentially overlaps the opposite edge of an adjacent sensor block. With such an arrangement, when the sensor block are operating at minimum diameter, part of one sensor block will overlap an adjacent block, in the circumferential direction. As the diameter of the pipeline in which the pig is used increases, the degree of overlap will reduce, and may even reduce to zero, but there will still be no overall axial gaps between the sensor blocks. Thus, by suitable shaping of the sensor blocks the tool can be used with a wide range of pipe diameters.