As mentioned in 2016 Concawe’s report, pipelines operators face up to many potential danger to the integrity of a pipeline and can suffer spillage incident caused for example by mechanical failure, operational activities, corrosion, natural causes, third party activity or others factors.

Over the years, technically advanced device and non-destructives testing methodologies have been developed to go against these risks. However, until today, operators have been using individual inspection tools or very long combined tools to detect and measure specific defects such as lamination, corrosion, dent with or without metal loss or cracks. This has caused operators to invest significant efforts to manage multiple inspection runs or to change facilities and later correlate independent sets of inspection data.

In order to avoid these unnecessary processes and to minimize costs, sources of error and operational conflicts, TRAPIL has designed a new inline inspection tool called XTraSonic-Neo.

The aims of this new inline inspection tool are:

• - Improvement of the safety on worksite and limit operating costs as a result of very compact tools, XTraSonic-Neo is the only Combined ILI no longer than 1.5m (e.g. for 20’’ up to 22’’ diameter). Most of the time, a crane is absolutely not required.
• - Detection, location, identification and sizing of dent, metal loss and cracks anomalies in water, oil or refined product pipeline in a single run.
• - Availability and smart services for specific requests as inspection of dual diameter, bidirectional inspection and short bend radius.
• - Measurement of wall thickness in a channeling corrosion or damaged inner wall and sizing cracks depth based on latest methodologies.

To monitor and maintain the integrity of pipeline networks in using the very high measurement resolution of this new ILI, good POD and sizing accuracy is essential. These capabilities are crucial for any long-term pipeline assessment activities.