[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 76 (Monday, April 21, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19389-19390]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-10196]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Research and Special Programs Administration
[Contract DTRS-56-96-C-0010]
Third Quarterly Performance Review Meeting on the Contract
``Detection of Mechanical Damage in Pipelines''
AGENCY: Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of meeting.
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SUMMARY: RSPA invites the pipeline industry, in-line inspection
(``smart pig'') vendors, and the general public to the third quarterly
performance review meeting of progress on the contract ``Detection of
Mechanical Damage in Pipelines.'' The meeting is open to anyone, and no
registration is required. This contract is being performed by Battelle
Memorial Institute (Battelle), along with the Southwest Research
Institute, and Iowa State University. The contract is a research and
development contract to develop electromagnetic in-line inspection
technologies to detect and characterize mechanical damage and stress
corrosion cracking. There will be a presentation on the status of the
contract tasks, including a summary of the activity and progress during
the past quarter and the projected activity for the next quarter.
DATES: The third quarterly performance review meeting will be held on
May 5, 1997, beginning at 12:30 p.m. and ending around 4:30 p.m.
ADDRESSES: The quarterly review meeting will be held in rooms 6332-36
of the Department of Transportation Headquarters Building, 400 7th
Street, S.W., Washington, DC. Non-government personnel must enter the
building through the southwest entrance in order to receive a temporary
building pass.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lloyd W. Ulrich, Contracting Officer's
Technical Representative, Office of Pipeline Safety, telephone:(202)
366-4556, FAX: (202) 366-4566, e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
RSPA is holding quarterly public meetings on the status of its
contract ``Detection of Mechanical Damage in Pipelines'' (Contract
DTRS-56-96-C-0010) because in-line inspection research is of immediate
interest to the pipeline industry and in-line inspection vendors. RSPA
will continue this practice throughout the two- or three-year period of
the contract. The meetings will allow disclosure of the results to all
interested parties and will provide an opportunity for interested
parties to ask Battelle questions concerning the research.
The first meeting was conducted on October 22, 1996, in Washington,
DC. The second quarterly review meeting was held on January 14, 1997 in
Houston, Texas, in parallel with a meeting of the Gas Research
Institute's (GRI) Nondestructive Evaluation Technical Advisory Group to
enable significant participation by pipeline operators and inspection
vendors. This, the third quarterly review meeting is being held in
Washington in advance of the May 6-7, 1997, meetings of RSPA's two
technical advisory committees, the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards
Committee (TPSSC) for gas pipelines and the Technical Hazardous Liquid
Pipeline Safety Standards Committee (THLPSSC) for hazardous liquid
pipelines. Each committee is a 15 member, Congressionally mandated
advisory committee (49 U.S.C. 60115) responsible for reviewing proposed
pipeline safety standards for technical feasibility, reasonableness,
and practicability. An announcement of the TPSSC and THLPSSC meetings
appeared in the Federal Register on April 4, 1997 (62 FR 16212). The
advisory committee members have been invited to this quarterly review
meeting in order for interested members to obtain a detailed briefing
on the status of the research.
The research contract with Battelle is a cooperative effort between
GRI and DOT, with GRI providing technical guidance.1 Future
meetings may be conducted in Columbus, Ohio (Battelle); San Antonio,
Texas (Southwest Research Institute); Ames, Iowa (Iowa State
University); or Chicago, Illinois (Gas Research Institute). It is
anticipated that every other meeting will be conducted in Washington,
DC. Each of the future meetings will be announced in the Federal
Register at least two weeks prior to the meeting.
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\1\ See the notice of the first quarterly performance review
meeting (61 FR 53484; Oct. 11, 1996) for information on the
Memorandum of Understanding between DOT and GRI.
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Attendance is open to all and does not require advanced
registration nor advanced notification to RSPA. However, we
specifically want that segment of the pipeline industry involved with
in-line inspection to be aware of the status of this contract. To
assure that the industry is well represented at these meetings, we have
invited the major domestic in-line inspection company (Tuboscope-Vetco
Pipeline Services) and the following pipeline industry trade
associations: American Petroleum Institute, Interstate Natural Gas
Association of America, and the American Gas Association. Each has
named an engineering/technical representative.
II. The Contract
The Battelle contract is a research and development contract to
evaluate and develop in-line inspection technologies for detecting
mechanical damage and cracking, such as stress-corrosion cracking
(SCC), in natural gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines.
Third-party mechanical damage is one of the largest causes of pipeline
failure, but existing in-line inspection tools cannot always detect or
accurately characterize the severity of some types of third-party
damage that can threaten pipeline integrity. Although SCC is not very
common on pipelines, it usually appears in high-stress, low-population-
density areas and only when a limited set of environmental conditions
are met. Several attempts have been made to develop an in-line
inspection tool for SCC, but there is no commercially successful tool
on the market.
Under the contract, Battelle will evaluate and advance magnetic
flux leakage (MFL) inspection technology for detecting mechanical
damage and two electromagnetic technologies for detecting SCC. The
focus is on MFL for mechanical damage because experience shows MFL can
characterize some types of mechanical damage and can be successfully
used for metal-loss corrosion under a wide variety of conditions. The
focus for SCC is on electromagnetic technologies that can be used in
conjunction with, or as a modification to, MFL tools. The technologies
to be evaluated take advantage of the MFL magnetizer either by
enhancing signals or using electrical currents that are generated by
the passage of an inspection tool through a pipeline.
The contract includes two major tasks during the base two years of
the contract. Task 1 is to evaluate existing
[[Page 19390]]
MFL signal generation and analysis methods to establish a baseline from
which today's tools can be evaluated and tomorrow's advances measured.
Then, it will develop improvements to signal analysis methods and
verify them through testing under realistic pipeline conditions.
Finally, it will build an experience base and defect sets to generalize
the results from individual tools and analysis methods to the full
range of practical applications.
Task 2 is to evaluate two inspection technologies for detecting
stress corrosion cracks. The focus in Task 2 is on electromagnetic
techniques that have been developed in recent years and that could be
used on or as a modification to existing MFL tools. Three subtasks will
evaluate velocity-induced remote-field techniques, remote-field eddy-
current techniques, and external techniques for sizing stress corrosion
cracks.
A Task 3 is being considered for an option year to the contract.
Task 3, if done, will verify the results from Tasks 1 and 2 by tests
under realistic pipeline conditions. Task 3 will (1) extend the
mechanical damage detection, signal decoupling, and sizing algorithms
developed in the basic program to include the effects of pressure, (2)
verify the algorithms under pressurized conditions in GRI's 4,700 foot,
24-inch diameter Pipeline Simulation Facility (PSF) flow loop, and (3)
evaluate the use of eddy-current techniques for characterizing cold
working within mechanical damage.
A drawback of present pig technology is the lack of a reliable pig
performance verification procedure that is generally accepted by the
pipeline industry and RSPA. The experience gained by the pipeline
industry and RSPA with the use of the PSF flow loop in this project
will provide a framework to develop procedures for evaluating pig
performance. Defect detection reliability is critical if instrumented
pigging is to be used as an in-line inspection tool in pipeline
industry risk management programs.
The ultimate benefits of the project could be more efficient and
cost-effective operations, maintenance programs to monitor and enhance
the safety of gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines. Pipeline
companies will benefit from having access to inspection technologies
for detecting critical mechanical damage and stress-corrosion cracks.
Inspection tool vendors will benefit by understanding where
improvements are beneficial and needed. These benefits will support
RSPA's long-range objective of ensuring the safety and reliability of
the gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipeline infrastructure.
Issued in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 1997.
Richard D. Huriaux,
Acting Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety.
[FR Doc. 97-10196 Filed 4-18-97; 8:45 am]
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