Technical Brief

Teletest Inspects Caissons

Teletest is a long-range ultrasonic or Guided Wave
NDT Technique developed for detecting metal loss in
pipe-work.

It is a pulse-echo system aimed at testing large

volumes of material from a single test point. Its initial
application was for detecting corrosion under
insulation in petrochemical plant pipe-work, but it has
found widespread use in other inspection situations
where pipes or tubes are not accessible, for example
where they are buried, encased in a sleeve or
elevated above the ground.
Location of the tool on the caisson
Recently Plant Integrity was called to trial Teletest to
inspect caissons, on an offshore installation. Access
to these caissons is difficult and Teletest has the
ability to inspect the whole length of the Caisson from
the top-side.

DAC curve for the caisson

From the results it was possible to see the end of the

Typical offshore installation
The aim of the inspection was to test the full length of
the caisson in order to gain an understanding of the
condition prior to removal. This also allowed Plant
Integrity to trial new analysis techniques such as
focusing and the new Amplitude Map (A-Map).
Teletest Focus uses the MultimodeTM system which
allowed the inspection of this Caisson using both
torsional and longitudinal wavemodes.
caisson at 65m. This indicated that the caisson was in
reasonable condition. There was found to be an
increased area of corrosion at between 32 and 35m
from the datum that corresponds with the splash-
zone.
The A-map was used to visually illustrate the
corrosion along the caisson and the corresponding
map to the above trace is given at the bottom of the
page.This A-map can be carried out instantaneously
within the software for all frequencies providing
valuable information about circumferential extent to
the operator. In this example, this showed that that
the worst area of corrosion is at the splash-zone
however the level of corrosion was within acceptable
limits.

However, due to the wall thickness of the caisson,

torsional was the optimum on this occasion.

Plant Integrity Ltd

Granta Park, Gt Abington, Cambridge CB21 6AL
T: +44 (0) 1223 893994 F: +44 (0) 1223 893944
info@plantintegrity.com
www.plantintegrity.com A TWI Group Company