A unique service for water pipeline operators worldwide

COATING ASSESSMENT
Remote sizing and determination of coating defects
CHALLENGE
Once the pipeline is buried, the pipeline coating is often non-assessable, and very expensive to inspect for failures. Alternative methods such as DCVG (Direct Current Voltage Gradient) and CIPS (Close Interval Potential Survey) are highly dependent on soil conditions and the qualifications of the operators who operate the equipment and evaluate the data. If the soil is very dry, no cathodic protection is installed to the pipeline, or the surface is not easily accessible, standard techniques cannot be applied at all.
SOLUTION
Current Magnetometry Inspection (CMI) enables the remote detection of coating holidays with optimized resolution and relative sizing. In comparison to all other available techniques for the assessment of coating condition, CMI inspects pipeline coating seamlessly as it has a measurement grid of 1 cm.The inspection procedure used, is not depended on the ground conditions and can be remotely applied, also without any direct contact to the ground needed at all. For the delivery of coating data, the type of coating, the installation of cathodic protection and the accessibility of the area, does not matter. Consequently, CMI is not only able to locate coating defects, but also able to classify them. Our customers use Coating Assessment for pipelines with no or very limited information about the coating condition.
KEY POINTS
- Preventing external corrosion failures
- Seamless GPS-based coating inspection of the pipeline
- Not depended in ground conditions
- Differentiation between metal loss and coating failure
PE coating holiday detected with CMI

Coating assessment with CMI System

Bitumen coating holiday detected with CMI

Coating failure detected with CMI

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR COATING ASSESSMENT
RELATIVE SIZING OF COATING DEFECTS
Possible
CATHODIC PROTECTION INSTALLED
Doesn’t matter
WALL THICKNESS | DIAMETER | MEDIUM | GRADE OF STEEL | PRESSURE | OUT OF SERVICE
No limitations
Inspection distance
Not limited
Smallest detectable fault
1 cm²


It’s for a reason that we are amongst Germany’s Top 100 innovators. Because our mission is to overcome these inspection challenges and, together with our clients, continuously improve the safety and reliability of all pipelines.