Quantification and localization of internal pipe damage

• A quantitative method for assessing and locating internal pipe damage is proposed.
• The method relies on the natural filtering of the reflected torsional wave.
• A damage of half the wall thickness reduces the reference reflection with 20%.
• Scattering of the damage itself increases with 10% and so reveals its location.

Internal pipeline defects are detectable and locatable from guided acoustic wave reflections using sensors mounted on the outer wall of a pipe. We demonstrate pipeline integrity monitoring with only two single acoustic sensors. Multi-mode dispersion imaging of shear displacement shows that the pure torsional mode is the only wave that survives axisymmetric pipe reflection. A reduction of 20% of the reference reflection is measured for a damage of half the wall thickness. This natural filtering is used to quantify and locate internal pipe damage.

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