An Approach for Easy Detection of Buried FRP Composite/Non-Metallic Pipes Using Ground-Penetrating Radar

Pipelines remain the safest means of transporting natural gas and petroleum products. Nonetheless, the pipeline infrastructure in the US is facing major challenges, especially in terms of corrosion of steel/metallic pipes and excavation damage of onshore pipelines (leading to oil spills, explosions,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-10, Vol.23 (20), p.8465
Main Authors: Kavi, Jonas, Halabe, Udaya B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aluminum
Aluminum foil
Antennas
Antennas (Electronics)
Carbon
carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP)
Casualties
Concrete
Corrosion
Corrosion and anti-corrosives
excavation damage
fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites
glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP)
Ground penetrating radar
ground-penetrating radar (GPR)
Infrastructure
Interfaces
Investigations
Metal fatigue
Permeability
Polymers
Polyvinyl chloride
Radar
Steel pipes
Technology application
Tensile strength
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Summary:Pipelines remain the safest means of transporting natural gas and petroleum products. Nonetheless, the pipeline infrastructure in the US is facing major challenges, especially in terms of corrosion of steel/metallic pipes and excavation damage of onshore pipelines (leading to oil spills, explosions, and deaths). Corrosion of metallic pipelines can be avoided by using non-corrosive materials such as plastic pipes for low-pressure applications and glass-fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite pipes for transporting high-pressure oil and natural gas. However, buried non-metallic pipelines are not easily detectable, which can lead to increased excavation damage during construction and rehabilitation work. Alternative strategies for making buried non-metallic pipes easily locatable using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) were investigated in this study. Results from this study have shown that using carbon fabric or an aluminum foil overlay on non-metallic pipes before burying in soil significantly increases the reflected GPR signal amplitude, thereby making it easier to locate such pipelines. The reflected GPR signal amplitude for pipe sections with carbon fabric or aluminum foil overlays was found to have increased by a factor of up to 4.5 over the control samples. The results also highlight the importance of selecting the appropriate antenna frequency for GPR surveys, since wet silt loam soil and clay significantly reduce the penetration depths of the radar signals produced by the GPR antennae.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s23208465