PR-244-173856-R01 In-line Inspection Crack Tool Reliability and Performance Evaluation

The ability for operators to make operational and maintenance decisions based on in-line inspection (ILI) data depends on the performance of ILI tools with respect to sizing and detection of crack and stress corrosion cracking (SCC) features. A series of previous Pipeline Research Council International, Inc. (PRCI) projects created a database of ILI tool and pipe excavation data that can be used to evaluate the detection and sizing capabilities of ultrasonic (UT) (NDE-4-E Phase 1, PR-244-133731) and electromagnetic acoustic (EMAT) (NDE-4-E Phase 2, PR-244-153719) ILI technologies. This current project, NDE-4-7 (PR-244-173856), was carried out by C-FER Technologies (1999) Inc. (C-FER) for PRCI. It is Phase 3 of an ongoing industry-wide effort to understand and characterize ILI tool performance. In addition to adding a new data set to the database developed in Phases 1 and 2, estimates of ILI tool performance with respect to rate of detection (ROD), probability of identification (POI), false discovery rate (FDR), and sizing accuracy (SA) were calculated. Two further analyses were performed, namely an investigation of the effect of crack profile data on tool performance and burst pressure estimation, and an evaluation of the reduction in sizing uncertainty attained through multiple measurements of crack features. This document has a related webinar.