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24"
RFT tool demo in Louisville, Ky.
In
September, 2009, Russell N.D.E. demonstrated the
performance of the brand new 24” Remote Field Tool. The
trial was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and was facilitated by the Battelle Institute.
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Louisville Water provided a 24‐inch cast iron, cement lined
water main for the demonstration, with a wall thickness of
0.75 inch (19mm). The water main was scheduled for
replacement and was out of service during the demo.
Because the pipeline was out of service, the Tool was
winched through the pipeline using a wire rope winch instead
of flowing with water. Winches were positioned at each end
of the pipeline, which was 627m in length. This allowed the
Tool to be launched from one end and extracted at the other
end, with the trailing winch being used to control the Tool
speed at 5m/minute. The inspection time was 2 hours,
followed by a data download of half an hour.
The image below shows the log produced by the 24” Tool of a
single pipe segment (from Bell‐and‐Spigot to
Bell‐and‐spigot). 168 such joint lengths were analysed, and
a total of 367 wall loss instances reported. In the screen
capture several local defects are detected and displayed. A
histogram of the results show that a majority of the defects
are less than or equal to 50% deep, with a much smaller
group in the 60‐80% range, and only a few defects 90% or
deeper. More importantly the results from the See Snake tool
show that the deep defects are concentrated within one
section of the line, leaving more than half of the line with
significant useful life.
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