Design and Construction of Smartball for Oil & Gas Pipeline Inspection

After the commissioning of an oil or gas pipeline, it is vital that it is inspected periodically to maintain its integrity. Traditional detection equipment which is the pipeline inspection gauges or pigs has a high risk of blocking a pipeline. The objectives of the project are to design a free swimming inspection device which can run freely in a pipeline with minimum risk of blocking a pipeline, and to develop a sensitive leak detection system that can detect small leaks in oil and gas pipelines. The scope of the project will involve mainly on the designing of the Smartball and also the testing of the product. For this project, in order to detect leaks, an acoustic sensor and a pressure sensor are used. Based on previous studies and literature reviews, when pressurized product leaks from a pipe, it creates a distinctive acoustic signal that is transmitted through the product flowing in the pipeline, and this signal can be received by using an acoustic sensor, on board the Smartball. In order to achieve the objectives of the project, the project was conducted starting from literature review, followed by the designing of the Smartball, material and equipment selection, fabrication and testing, and finally result analysis. The sensors need to be programmed to the microprocessor in order to allow the sensors to detect the acoustic wave and pressure difference. The fabrication of the Smartball was divided into two, which are fabrication of the cores, and fabrication of the inner components. However, due to some difficulties, the design of the Smartball needs to be modified. After fabrication, the product needs to be tested in a pipeline in order to test the mobility of the Smartball, and to test the functionality of the sensors. However, due to lack of availability of pipeline facilities, the Smartball was not able to be run in a pipeline. Thus, an indirect test was performed by submerging the product in bucket of water, and heated with a heating coil. This was done in order to proof that the onboard sensors can detect the changes in temperature and pressure of the surrounding, the microprocessor can process the data obtained from the sensors, and the data can be stored in a memory storage. From the indirect tests performed, if the temperature and pressure were able to be detected by the sensors, processed by the microprocessor, and stored in the memory storage, it can be concluded that the acoustic sensor will be able to detect, and be stored in an actual test runs that will be performed in the future.