CMI-inspection inside a nuclear power plant

The safe operation of nuclear power plants is a major challenge for operators, especially in today's world.

The European Commission has proposed plans to label some gas and nuclear power as green to make the energy transition possible and plannable.  Consequently, nuclear power will continue to make a major contribution to energy supply in the near future, making it even more important to ensure the long-term operation of nuclear power plants.

The condition of the buried infrastructure is unknown or insufficiently known for many operators.

Thus, in most cases, there are no inspection techniques that can find out the condition of the fire water pipelines or the cooling lines without much effort. CMI is a technical revolution for the safety of underground infrastructure used or operated by nuclear power plants.

Without a direct access to or into the pipeline, CMI enables to detect potential integrity threats with remote field inspection. And most importantly for companies that operate critical infrastructure: No pipeline shutdown is needed during CMI-inspection.

Over-the-Line (OtL) survey technique has won several innovation awards and is currently the most widely used inspection technique for critical infrastructure that cannot be inspected from the inside. However, it is important to note that the inspection technique is not a substitute for modern in-line inspection (ILI) tools such as intelligent pigs, self-propelled crawlers, or free-floating tools. This is because of the lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), as they ILItools sit very close to the pipe wall and CMI has always the depth of the pipeline as the main factor that influences SNR. The use of CMI is only useful when no other inspection technique can be used to determine the condition of the pipeline wall, as it is a screening rather than an inspection tool.

For any specific questions regarding aboveground inspection and the limitations of CMI, please feel always free to contact one of our inspection experts.