• Souza, Marcos
• Lopez, Fernando
• Maldague, Xavier

Abstract

<jats:p>Corrosion under insulation (CUI) is one of the major concerns of oil and petrochemical installations as damageevolves invisibly under insulation layers and usually revealed on the occurrence of leaking or more catastrophic failure. Methods to early detect CUI and its causes is an urgent necessity to assure safety and performance of insulated processpiping. Oil and petrochemical plants are often considered explosive environments in which thermal excitation devices areforbidden. The present work aims then on the consolidation of a passive thermographic methodology to reliably detectmoisture trapped under insulation layers that will cause corrosion. The proposed methodology focuses on the thermal behaviour of the piping structure during process variationsand interactions with the external ambient. The partial least-squares analysis showed promising performance on separatingdifferent physical phenomena and creating cleaner images for defect detection.</jats:p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• corrosion
• defect
• thermography