Measuring the thickness of metal pipe walls with ultrasound

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Pure Technologies is a world leader in the development and application of innovative technologies forinspection, monitoring and management of critical infrastructure. Non-destructive testing (NDT), such asultrasound techniques, can be used to estimate the wall thickness for identifying the specific areas along apipeline that requires the immediate renewal. Compared to other conventional NDTs, ultrasound techniqueshave accurate location detection, high sensitivity and efficiency, and low cost. It has received a significantattention from the industrial point of view. The signal received by the conventional ultrasound thicknessmeasurement device contains abundant information such as that related to the corrosion either on the coating oron the surface of the metal pipe .A key issue of measuring wall thickness with ultrasound is that the cement coating around the pipeline affectsthe accuracy of the measurement. If the distance between reflected signals is shorter than half of the spatialspan of the incident pulse, the echoes from various interfaces might overlap. It is often difficult to distinguishthe signals due to the coating from those due to the wall. The goal of this project is to develop an advancedultrasound thickness measurement system integrating with effective signal processing methods for identifyingthe reflected signals of interest to accurately assess the pipe wall. We will also assess if an ultrasound arraysystem can improve the detectability of the coating layer.