SBIR Phase I: Development of a Non-Destructive Fatigue Monitoring System

该小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目旨在开发一种先进的非接触式、非破坏性监测技术，以可靠地识别管道、管道和管材的早期疲劳损伤。目前的行业实践依赖于基于统计的半经验模型，不幸的是，这些模型在预测疲劳寿命时可能具有数量级的误差，疲劳寿命是暴露于高循环、高应变和/或升高的压力和温度的金属中的主要失效模式。美国的基础设施依赖于数百万英里的管道，管道和油管，这些管道在运输有价值的流体方面至关重要，这些流体服务于许多行业，包括市政供水，石油和天然气的生产和运输以及加工厂的化学品。不幸的是，这种老化的基础设施可能会失败，带来灾难性的后果。这项新技术的成功开发和商业化将是完整性监测的一大飞跃，从而大大降低成本和延迟，并消除现场的灾难性故障。据估计，管道和连续油管监测的潜在市场每年超过40亿美元。SBIR项目的智力价值集中在证明这种新型疲劳监测技术的技术和经济可行性上，其具体目标是确定材料何时达到其实际疲劳寿命的90%。该技术基于一种新的电磁测量方案，可以有效地检测材料中的磁位错，磁位错已被证明是疲劳失效的早期指标。使用先进的分析方法，测量的电磁特性和疲劳寿命之间的强相关性可以提供一个直接和可靠的识别即将发生的疲劳损伤，而不会损失材料的完整性。SBIR提出要解决的主要挑战是：（1）设计一种基于电磁的测量技术，该技术具有足够的灵敏度，以检测现场操作条件下早期疲劳损伤中出现的磁性缺陷;（2）开发适当的检测算法，以处理影响疲劳损伤的统计变化;（3）设计一种成本-有效的监控解决方案与替代疲劳管理实践相比。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1 project proposes to develop an advanced non-contact, non-destructive monitoring technology to reliably identify early fatigue damage in pipelines, piping, and tubing. Current industry practice relies on statistically based, semi-empirical models that unfortunately can have an order of magnitude in error in predicting fatigue life, a leading failure mode in metals that are exposed to high cycling, high strain, and/or elevated pressures and temperatures. The United States infrastructure relies on millions of miles of pipes, pipelines, and tubing that are critical in the transport of valuable fluids serving a number of industries including municipal water, production and transport of oil and gas, and chemicals in processing plants. Unfortunately, this aging infrastructure can fail with disastrous consequences. The successful development and commercialization of this new technology will be a great leap in integrity monitoring, resulting in significant reduction in costs and delays, and eliminating catastrophic failures in the field. The estimated total addressable market for pipeline and coil tubing monitoring are in excess of $4 billion annually.The intellectual merit of this SBIR project centers on the demonstration of the technical and economic feasibility of this novel fatigue monitoring technology with a specific target of identifying when the material has reached 90% of its actual fatigue life. The technology is based on a novel electromagnetic measurement scheme that can effectively detect magnetic dislocations in the material which have been shown to be early indicators of failure due to fatigue. Using advanced analytics, strong correlations between the measured electromagnetic properties and fatigue life can provide a direct and reliable identifier of imminent fatigue damage without loss of material integrity. The major challenges that this SBIR effort proposes to address are (1) engineering an electromagnetic-based measurement technique with sufficient sensitivity to detect the magnetic defects seen in early fatigue damage under field operating conditions (2) developing appropriate detection algorithms to handle the statistical variations affecting fatigue damage and (3) engineering a cost-effective monitoring solutions compared with alternative fatigue management practices.