New High Temperature, High Accuracy, On-Line Corrosion Monitoring From GE

Automates Wall Thickness Measurement And Offers Connectivity with Existing Plant Asset Management Platforms

Billerica, MA - Rightrax HT, the latest on-line wall thickness monitoring system from GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies, provides accurate and reliable wall thickness data of pipes and vessels operating at extremely high temperatures. Corrosion monitoring is extremely important for users in the oil & gas industry to elevate inspection productivity, provide significant cost savings and help ensure plant safety & integrity.

"It is estimated that the cost of corrosion equals 3% of US GDP, while the overall cost relating to oil and gas, power generation and other key industries exceeds $150 billion annually," explains Jim Costain, Oil & Gas Segment Marketing Leader, GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies, "Industry estimates that 20 to 25% of these costs can be avoided by better use of existing monitoring technologies. Rightrax HT is a technology that can make a significant contribution to these cost savings."

Rightrax HT has applications in the oil and gas sector in many upstream, midstream and downstream situations, where corrosion and erosion monitoring is necessary to ensure plant integrity or to maximize plant function and operational life. Typically, it can help an oil refinery process opportunity crude by accurately monitoring the corrosion rates as a function of added control inhibitors. In a standard configuration, the new system features groups of four high-temperature sensors, which are clamped directly to the pipe or vessel to be monitored and connected to a single-sensor interface.

As with all GE Rightrax thickness-monitoring systems, the new high-temperature version provides an ultrasonic, non-intrusive, on-line solution to corrosion and erosion monitoring for permanent installation on pipelines and process plant components. Once fitted, there is no need to remove insulation, erect scaffolding, excavate pipes or shutdown units to check equipment integrity. Sensors are simply clamped to the surface of the pipe or vessel to be monitored. The ease of system connectivity with existing plant asset-management platforms allows users to significantly extend their use beyond on-line rotating asset management into the on-line monitoring of fixed assets and trend long-term corrosion data.

Rightrax HT's current temperature capability extends to 350ºC with an accuracy and resolution that is significantly higher than that achievable with current systems. In common with all GE on-line corrosion monitoring systems, this new high-temperature addition, which leverages GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms Proficy® HMI/SCADA CIMPLICITY technology, a multi-functional software platform for monitoring several types of industrial asset, has been designed to allow easy connectivity to existing plant asset-management platforms such as GE System 1. It can also be used to complement pigging systems, specifically to monitor critical spots and non-piggable areas.

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SOURCE: GE Sensing & Inspection Technologies