Technical Brief

Corrosion Under Insulation

(CUI)
The Teletest Focus+ system is a Guided Wave NDT
Technique developed for screening pipe-work for
areas of metal loss damage.
It is a pulse-echo system aimed to inspect large
volumes of material from a single test point. The initial
application was for the detection of corrosion under
insulation for petrochemical plant industry, but it has
evolved to be used widespread in other inspection
situations where pipes or tubes are not accessible.
Examples of this are lines that are buried, encased in
a sleeve or elevated above the ground.
Plant Integrity Ltd was requested by one of its clients
in Argentina to employ the Teletest Focus+ system
on two cryogenic jetty lines at 8 and 3 diameters.
The inspection proved to be very successful with
100% of both lines being inspected over a 2 week
period.

1 meter

Figure 2 corrosion detected at 180

The area of interest was directly above water so an
access platform had to be erected to allow follow up
to take place at this location. Upon removal of the
insulation the inspection team identified external
corrosion at the 180 position seen in figure 2. This
area of corrosion was approximately 1 meter in length
and 35% wall loss.

Anomaly

Weld

Figure 3 TL01~location of detected anomaly

Figure 1 Location of anomaly area highlighted in fig 3

Each jetty line was approximately 2km in length

including several expansion loops and pipe bridges.
Several anomalies were identified during the
inspection and follow up was conducted whilst the
operators were still on-site. The first anomaly
identified was located during the opening shot of the
inspection; this was of upmost interest to the client as
the location was in a difficult to access area seen in
figure 1.An anomaly classified as medium priority was
identified approximately -3m from the tool position
(see figure 3).

The A-map scan (see figure 3) was also used in the

identification of this anomaly. The signal from the
weld identified at approximately -13m from the tool
position does not display an axi-symmetric response.
This echo response from the weld signal should be
displayed as an even distribution of colour
representing uniform circumferential signal amplitude.
The above gave the operator increased confidence
that the signal seen at -3m was in fact attributed to a
wall loss defect.
For information on how we can support your pipeline
integrity management programme, please contact us by
email at info@plantintegrity.com or by telephone at our
Cambridge, UK headquarters on 0044 1223 893994.

Plant Integrity Ltd

Granta Park, Gt Abington, Cambridge CB21 6GP
T: +44 (0) 1223 893994 F: +44 (0) 1223 893944
info@plantintegrity.com

www.plantintegrity.com

A TWI Group Company