Applications of High-Precision Thickness Gauge in Pipeline Inspection

Foreword

In daily pipeline maintenance and inspection, how to quickly determine whether the inside of a pipe is clogged or not without affecting normal use is a common but challenging problem. Today, we will introduce how to use ultrasonic thickness gauges to effectively solve this challenge by measuring the outside wall of a pipe to assess its internal condition.

Clogged pipes are a common problem in industrial production, municipal water supply and heating systems. Traditional detection methods often require downtime, dismantling of pipelines or the use of equipment such as endoscopes, which is not only time-consuming and laborious, but may also affect normal production and life. Ultrasonic thickness measurement technology, as a non-destructive testing method, can be used to determine whether there is a blockage inside by measuring the outer wall of the pipe with easy operation.

Ultrasonic thickness gauges measure the thickness of a material by emitting ultrasonic waves and receiving their echoes. When the inside of a pipe is clogged with sediment or foreign material, the ultrasonic waves are unable to penetrate the clogging to the other side of the pipe wall, resulting in the return signal not being received. Based on this principle, we can quickly determine the condition of the inside of the pipe.

Measurement Difficulties

In the normal use of water pipes, there are several difficulties in determining the internal state from the measurement of the outer wall only:

1.Uneven wall thickness of the pipe: Due to the material, manufacturing process, etc., the wall thickness of the pipe may be uneven, affecting the measurement accuracy.

2.External environmental interference: the outer wall of the pipe may have corrosion, coatings, etc., which will affect the propagation of ultrasound and echo signal reception.

3.Complex internal deposits: There are many kinds of deposits inside the pipeline, which may include sediment, scale, grease, etc. The acoustic properties of these substances vary greatly. The acoustic properties of these substances vary greatly, increasing the difficulty of measurement.

Professional Solutions

YUSHI PM5 Gen2 High-precision Ultrasonic Thickness Gauge can match with 2.25MHz Protective Film Probe to solve the problems showed as above.

It possesses high accuracy and powerful signal processing capability, which can effectively deal with the complex measurement environment of the pipeline wall.

Considering the field conditions, using protective film probes can form better coupling with the outer wall of the pipeline, and has excellent effects on pipeline detection and corrosion measurement.

Low frequency probes such as 2.25MHz Membrane Probes can more easily penetrate the pipe wall and increase the effect of coupling.This is essential to get the clear bottom echo.

Measurement Procedures

In actual measurements, we first measure normal pipes to ensure that the instrument parameters are set correctly and to record normal echo signals. Then we measure the clogged pipe and observe the change of the bottom echo. If the echo signal from the opposite pipe wall cannot be received, it can be concluded that there is a blockage inside the pipe.

We can see change of the waveform showed as below: 

By the comparison of the two pipes' waveform, we can clearly observe the differences of normal pipeline and blocked pipeline. It allows the precise analysis and proper determination for pipeline maintenance.

Summary

The application of ultrasonic thickness gauge in pipeline inspection can not only quickly determine whether the pipeline is blocked without affecting the normal use of the pipeline, but also provide strong technical support for pipeline maintenance. By choosing the proper probes and adjusting the parameters of the instrument, we can cope with all kinds of difficulties in pipeline inspection and ensure the accuracy and reliability of the measurement results.

If you are still facing the problems like this case, please do not hesitate to contact with us!