| US 7,475,596 B2 | ||
| Non-destructive testing of pipes | ||
| Osama Hunaidi, Ottawa (Canada); Marc Bracken, Toronto (Canada); and Alex Wang, Orleans (Canada) | ||
| Assigned to National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, ON (Canada) | ||
| Filed on Dec. 07, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/952,582. | ||
| Application 11/952582 is a division of application No. 11/156573, filed on Jun. 21, 2005, granted, now 7,328,618. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2008/0078247 A1, Apr. 03, 2008 | ||
| Int. Cl. G01N 29/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 73—592 [73/597; 73/602; 73/622; 73/861.42] | 11 Claims |
| 1. An apparatus for the non-destructive condition assessment of a pipe carrying a fluid, comprising:
a) first and second sensors for detecting an acoustic disturbance propagating past two longitudinally separated points on
said pipe; and
b) a processor receiving inputs from said first and second sensors and programmed to:
(i) determine an actual value representative of the propagation velocity of said acoustic disturbance;
(ii) compute a corresponding predicted value for the propagation velocity as a function of at least one wall thickness parameter
of said pipe by using a theoretical model for the propagation of acoustic waves in said pipe that assumes said pipe has a
finite wall thickness with a predetermined circumferential thickness profile; and
(iii) compute said wall thickness parameter by matching said actual value with said predicted value.
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