Numerical Investigation of Locating and Identifying Pipeline Reflectors Based on Guided-Wave Circumferential Scanning and Phase Characteristics

Abstract

The methodology based on reflected guided-wave by a reflector associated with an increase or a decrease in the cross-sectional area has the challenge of determining their location and identity. This paper presents a numerical investigation of a method for locating and identifying the reflector based on guided-wave circumferential scanning and phase characteristics. To determine the axial and circumferential positions of the reflector within the pipeline, the procedures of the guided wave-based circumferential scanning were presented, including data preprocessing, median filter, image smoothing and binary processing. Through theoretical analysis, we obtained the phase relationship between the guided-wave excitation signal and reflection signals generated by a reflector, such as corrosion, crack, weld and support, which caused the change in the cross-sectional area. Consequently, an algorithm based on the phase characteristics was proposed to determine the change and type of reflector. The spatial distances were calculated between the guided wave excitation signals with different phases and the concerned reflection signals, subsequently identifying the change and type of the reflector by comparing the distance values. An identification index named the reliable index for the character of the reflector (RICR) was defined to evaluate the reliability of the predicted results. Numerical and finite element simulation validations of the proposed method were performed. It has been found that if RICR was larger than 1.05, the results predicting the reflector type were reliable. The proposed method was found to be superior relative to the conventional correlation coefficient method according to the numerical results. Finally, the simulation results demonstrated that the proposed method could be potentially applied for locating and identifying reflectors in pipelines.