Research on Oil/Gas In-pipe Inspection Robot

A new type of in-pipe mobile robot was designed and developed on the basis of w heel in-pipe robot and crawler in-pipe robot. The three sets of driving wheels circumferentially 120° apart in the cross section, both front and rear driving wheels are distributed on the same parallelogram mechanis m. The driving motor drives the three sets of driving wheels by worm couple, the regulating motor makes the three sets of driving wheels push against the pipe inwall with stable and adequate pressing force by the ball screw pair and p ressure sensor, so the in-pipe robot can provide adequate and stable traction force. The robot mechanism is simple and sm all in size and work reliably . It is particularly suitable to the pipe with diameter 400～650 mm.

The effect of pipe bend on low-frequency longitudinal mode guided wave propagation

The pipe bend significantly changes the propagation characteristics of guided wave,and makes the interpretation of the received signals difficult.Therefore,better understanding of guided wave propagating in bended pipe is essential for the inspection of pipeline comprising bends.First of all,the different features of dispersion curves derived with the semi-analytical finite element method for guided wave in bended pipes are summarized.Secondly,based on the dispersion curves for guided wave in bended pipes,experiments are performed to investigate the mode conversions of L（0,1） mode guided wave traveling through pipe bends.It is found that,except for the mode conversion from L（0,1） to F（1,1）,the L（0,1） reflections of bends are also observed in some cases,which are proven to be the mode converted negative L（0,1）mode guided wave,and the negative L（0,1） mode guided wave becomes more obvious with the decrease of excitation frequency and bending radius.The findings of this paper will provide some insight for guided wave behavior in bended pipe,and generalize the application of guided wave inspection in practical pipelines.

Implementation of a drainage information, analysis and management system

An integrated drainage information, analysis and management system （DIAMS） was developed and implemented for the New Jersey Department of Transportation （N/DOT）. The purpose of the DIAMS is to provide a useful tool for managers to evaluate drainage infrastructure, to facilitate the determination of the present costs of preserving those in- frastructures, and to make decisions regarding the optimal use of their infrastructure budgets. The impetus for DIAMS is the culvert information management system （CIMS）, which is developed to manage the data for culvert pipes. DIAMS maintains and summa- rizes accumulated inspection data for all types of drainage infrastructure assets, including pipes, inlet/outlet structures, outfalls and manufactured treatment devices. DIAMS capa- bilities include identifying drainage infrastructure, maintaining inspection history, map- ping locations, predicting service life based on the current condition states, and assessing present asset value. It also includes unit cost values of 72 standard items to estimate the current cost for new assets with the ability to adjust for future inflation. In addition, DIAMS contains several different repair, rehabilitation and replacement options to remedy the drainage infrastructure. DIAMS can analyze asset information and determine decisions to inspect, rehabilitate, replace or do nothing at the project and network levels by comparing costs with risks and failures. Costs may be optimized to meet annual maintenance budget allocations by pfioritizing drainage infrastructure needing inspection, cleaning and repair. DIAMS functional modules include vendor data uploading, asset identification, system administration and financial analysis. Among the significant performance feature of DIAMS is its proactive nature, which affords decision makers the means of conducting a comprehensive financial analysis to determine the optimal proactive schedule for the proper maintenance actions and to prioritize them accordingly. Benefits of DIAMS include long-term savings that accrue by adopting optimized preventive maintenance strategies and facilitating compliance with Governmental Accounting Standards Board （GASB） and federal storm water regulations.