Projects
Projects: Projects for Investigator |
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| Reference Number | NIA_SGN0069 | |
| Title | GasLight Q field portable nondestructive PE material analyzer | |
| Status | Completed | |
| Energy Categories | Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Oil and Gas, Refining, transport and storage of oil and gas) 100%; | |
| Research Types | Applied Research and Development 100% | |
| Science and Technology Fields | PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry) 25%; PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics) 25%; ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering) 50%; |
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| UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation | Not Cross-cutting 100% | |
| Principal Investigator |
Project Contact No email address given SGN |
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| Award Type | Network Innovation Allowance | |
| Funding Source | Ofgem | |
| Start Date | 01 March 2015 | |
| End Date | 01 February 2017 | |
| Duration | 29 months | |
| Total Grant Value | £483,285 | |
| Industrial Sectors | Technical Consultancy | |
| Region | South East | |
| Programme | Network Innovation Allowance | |
| Investigators | Principal Investigator | Project Contact , SGN (100.000%) |
| Web Site | http://www.smarternetworks.org/project/NIA_SGN0069 |
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| Objectives | The objectives of the project will be to: ; Produce a review report summarising current gas pipe and jointing QA and NDT methods and defining the application of spectroscopic methods to gas pipe measurement giving enough information to enable the confident specification and selection of the portable hand-held spectrometers that meet the application requirements for the project ; Building a base spectroscopy library of PE pipe based on a wide variety of samples of different ages, manufacturers and mechanical conditions ; Building on the above, to build up a spectroscopic library of different weld conditions and faults, including inclusions, air bubbles, welds with poor weld strength or alignment for different grades and manufacturers of pipe ; Software development and fusion joint metric analysis to enable the above library to be used enable the most effective condition assessment protocols to be produced ; Demonstration of the transferability of the method onto a variety of different manufacturers hardware platforms The success criteria of the project would be: ; That the analysis report summarising current gas pipe QA and NDT methods and defining the application of spectroscopic methods to gas pipe measurement would give enough information to enable the confident specification and selection of the portable hand-held spectrometers that meet the application requirements for the project ; The production of two working analysers that have carried out first level assessment of multiple gas pipes and materials grades and show good capability for materials identification and measurement of physical properties of currently produced pipe materials ; The ability to construct measurement models for weld quality assessment related to key materials characteristics and to measure these spatially using spectroscopic methods to map the condition of the joint. ; Demonstration that the software models will operate on alternative spectrometers that satisfy the application requirements. ; A final report detailing the findings from the Project and giving recommendations for a final product which can be used by unskilled, trained operatives for all measurement applications. | |
| Abstract | There are very few methods to assess the condition of installed PE pipe and joint materials non-destructively whether at both point of fit or on historically installed pipeline. In the field, pipe weld quality is limited to visual inspection. Joint quality is controlled by guidance on butt welding and electro-fusion procedures, with inspection of the evenness of the bead and, during installation, inspecting the underside of the removed bead for offsets, contamination and slit defects, based on correlation with knowledge of pipe and joint behaviour through destructive testing work. Due to variation in site conditions, weather factors and other external factors weld quality cannot be assured and quality inspection techniques are basic and very judgemental. These issues can result in subsequent leakage or joint failure. Additionally ; There is no field portable method for assessing the materials properties (e. g. aging) or physical condition (e. g. fracture stress) of PE pipe and therefore no way to assess risk of potential failure or assessing the materials expected remaining life ; There is no method to relate the pipe material properties and condition to the properties of the material when it was originally manufactured, or identify the source manufacturer The project to develop a rapid and handheld spectroscopic based condition assessment tool for the condition assessment of pipe and joint materials, and validate the approach for the most common gas pipe materials, pipe and joint types. Such a device would be fibre optics based and have the ability to use different fibre-optic probes to suit the specific inspection scenario in the field. The device would use proprietary hardware with software and an inspection methodology that would be developed by the project. The device would be truly field-portable, contained in a small robust suitcase. The software and methodology would be developed such that it would not be dependent on a specific model or make of spectrometer. When fully developed to TRL8 the software and calibration underpinning the device would be developed to give very clear and relatively simple information to an operator, to remove subjectivity and minimise the skill level requirement on the operator. This would result in much better, more consistent quality control and audit process being available.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above | |
| Publications | (none) |
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| Final Report | (none) |
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| Added to Database | 20/08/18 | |
