When faced with a pipeline cracking threat, the first port of call for many pipeline operators will be non-destructive examination in the form of In-Line-Inspection (ILI) technologies. And why not? Metal loss (e.g. Magnetic Flux Leakage) technologies have been a corner-stone of pipeline corrosion-management for the past 40 years, and are generally seen to offer the best value for money when balancing convenience, performance and cost. Does the same ‘go-to’ approach for cracking seem sensible? Well, yes and no.

Although the ability to quickly and conveniently collect threat information across the whole pipeline is still an advantage, crack detection represents a far more complex extension to the ILI technology family. These technological challenges and the complex nature of cracking itself bring with them significant sources of uncertainty compared to other forms of ILI. These come to light when attempting to interpret the output – particularly in terms of extracting integrity threats from an overall population of ‘crack-like’ calls. This uncertainty generates risk in terms of integrity management decision-making – not only from being under-conservative but also, less obviously, from being over-conservative. Repeatedly digging crack-calls that turn out to be corrosion doesn’t make anyone popular!

Frontline Integrity offer complete technology independence with a team possessing over 50 years combined of multi-discipline asset integrity management and ILI technology expertise with both pipeline operators and technology vendors. In this series of 8 articles, our in-house experts will show you how to minimise uncertainty and maximise the value of your crack-detection ILI campaign at all stages: from initial threat appraisal, to responding to the results; as well as how crack-detection ILI can be integrated into an overall crack management plan to manage the threat into the future.