The evaluation of the bouncing model of caliper pig’s detection arm in subsea gas pipelines

Abstract

Caliper pigs are widely used for measuring pipeline internal geometry and detecting anomalies, such as dents, wrinkles and flat spots. Due to its excellent transport capacity, caliper pig is more widely used in subsea gas pipelines than smart pig, such as Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) pig or Ultrasonic Test (UT) pig. In this article, the bouncing process of detection arm of caliper pig across convex defect is studied. And then, the influence of the collision between the detection arm and deformation defect, as well as the defect shape on the bounce, is discussed. Based on that, a bouncing theoretical model of the detection arm is developed for analyzing the bouncing phenomenon. Furthermore,the bouncing process that the detection arm moves across the convex defect with different velocities and different initial spring forces is studied by experimental method. The bouncing model calculation value is approximately equal with the experimental value, verifying the validity of the bouncing model. The bouncing model has a great significance for caliper pig evaluating the pipeline convex defect.