it is rather like carrying out a medical check-up on a human body at home or in a doctor’s surgery without the need for invasive surgery orultimatelyeven post-mortem examination.
“Non-destructive testing is a discipline which relies on techniques which allow the inspection of plant…
Naturallythe quality and reliability of any home medical examination depends very much on the equipment a doctor carries in this bag to help him in his diagnosis. Often this is confined to a stethoscopea thermometer and a spygmometer.
If this same doctor’s bag could also contain an
X-ray machine and a CT scannerthen obviouslydiagnoses would be so much more accurate and more lives would be saved.
The NDT inspector’s equivalent of the doctor’s bag is his toolbox and this has now been significantly expanded with the addition of a truly portable video borescopewhich means that remote visual inspection can now be more easily carried out in difficult locations and can often be used with portable ultrasonic and eddy current flaw detectors to achieve more reliable plant condition diagnosis to reduce downtime and significantly extend the life of important assets in the oil and gas sector.
Remote visual inspection
Remote visual inspection (RVI) is playing an increasingly important role as a vital inspection tool throughout the process and oil and gas sectorin much the same way that endoscopy and ‘key hole’ surgery is now used in the medical field. IndeedRVI is now an official NDT discipline and is a module within ASNT’s TC1A Level-III testing and certification process.
HistoricallyRVI has been used to perform routine or emergency inspection in inaccessible areas and to eliminate the need for human entry into hazardous areasboth in on-shore processing plants and off-shore production platforms.
Inaccessible areas include small diameter pipes and tubes in boilersproduct transfer lines etc and small tanks and vessels to check for corrosionscale blockage or mechanical damage.
Hazardous areas can include storage vesselsfractionation towers and steam generatorswhere checks are carried out for corrosionnozzle weld condition and product residuefor instance. Andas in medical endoscopyRVI is sometimes used to locate foreign bodies within a piece of plant.
oday’s range of RVI equipment extends from flexible borescopeswhich are suitable for tube of down to 0.5mm diameterthrough pantilt and zoom
(PTZ) cameras for viewing in large areasto robotic crawlers which can be used in vessels and pipes
up to 1500mm diameter and can be operated under water. Data can be provided as still image or video motion. With additional features such as stereo
and shadow measurement capabilities for defect sizing
The latest developments in RVIsuch as the XLG3 VideoProbe from GEhave seen significant advances in the way that inspection data is managedstored and usedas well as in the quality of the digital data.
The newportable XLG3 VideoProbe from GE now allows inspection information to be stored in real time on an on-board DVD/CD drive and an inspector can create folders and organise and delete files on the
on-board drive and even create reportscontaining integrated saved images. The information can also be downloaded by means of flash drives or it can be transferred to remote sites by means of the internet for collaboration and confirmation during live inspections.
Howeverthere has long been a need for a sophisticatedyet ruggedvideo borescope which is truly portableto allow RVI access to previously inaccessible locations and to allow easy packing in hand luggage during helicopter transport offshore. This need has now been met with the introduction of the XL Go!
The battery-driven XL Gofrom GE Sensing & Inspection Technologiesweighs just 3.8lb and is totally self-containedrequiring no cable connection to any associated processing or drive instrument. It uses the latest high output LED technology to transmit light by a fibre optic bundle to the camera head and a VGA LCD screen provides high-resolution data displayso that compactness does not involve a compromise on image quality.
ata storage for the XL GO in the form of jpegsbitmaps and Mpeg videois via a 1GB internal flash drive and a USB2 flash memory stick. An extra USB port provides additional memory and the flash memory sticks are used for data transfer.
Embedded file manager software supports file and folder creation to allow systematic data managementwhile a VGA port allows easy connection for external video viewing.
The XL GO is also extremely easy to useanother important feature in areas of restricted access. It has just five operating buttons and intuitivedrop-down menus combine with on-screen cues. Its functionality is increased with exclusive measurement features including ShadowProbeand StereoProbe. Inverse and zoom features allow precise cursor placement and optical camera tip adapters alter field of viewdepth of field and direction of view.
Conclusions
Reliable and reportable inspection becomes increasingly important as plant and equipmentonshore and offshorecontinues to age. Some indication of the size of the task is given by the fact the no new refineries have been built in the US for the past 25years.
The problem is further compounded by the growing shortage in skilled inspection personnel. Consequentlythe ability of NDT technicians to work smarter is vital if the safetyreliability and on-going functioning of process plant and equipment in the oil and gas segment is to be guaranteed.
Only by providing them with the tools to carry out their tasks fasterproviding results which are easier to process and interpretfrom those areas and locations which can allow meaningful assessment of an asset’s overall conditioncan we hope to meet the challenges of NDT in the future. The XL GO is one such tool.o
Enter 93 or at www.engineerlive.com/iog
Jim Costain is with GE Sensing & Inspection TechnologiesCoventryUnited Kingdom. www.geinspectiontechnologies.com
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