Pipeline Monitoring Systems

Pipeline management presents challenges that are quite unique. Their long length, high value, high risk and often difficult access conditions require continuous monitoring as well as an optimization of maintenance interventions.


The main concern for pipeline owners comes from possible leakages that can have a severe impact on the environment and put the pipeline out of service for repair. Leakages can have different causes, including excessive deformations caused by earthquakes, landslides or collisions mobile objects, corrosion, wear, material flaws or third party intrusion.


Leakages can be detected and localized using distributed fiber optic temperature sensors. Fluid pipelines generate a hot-spot at the location of the leak, while gas pipelines generate a cold-spot due to relaxation of gas pressure.


These localized thermal anomalies can be detected by a distributed measurement system with good spatial, time and temperature resolution. Furthermore, it is often possible to detect damage before a critical state is reached.Testing Indonesia's systems are ideally suited for these tasks.


By measuring distributed strain, it is possible to determine the increased stresses due to external actions such as landslides and earthquakes, or the internal causes such as the reduction of cross-section due to corrosion and wear. Distributed temperature and strain monitoring can also detect third party intrusion before any damage is done to the pipeline.


Testing Indonesia's pipeline monitoring systems can be used for distributed measurements of both strain and temperature over extremely long distances, limiting the number of instruments required to monitor a long pipeline. Testing Indonesia's pipeline monitoring systems are based on a combination of sensing cables, measurement instruments and data processing software. Different cables are available for temperature sensing (normal and high temperatures), strain sensing and combined strain and temperature sensing.


The cables are designed to be installed on the pipeline surface or in its proximity. The different distributed sensing solutions can cover pipeline lengths from hundreds of meters to hundreds of kilometers. Specialized software packages are available to detect leakages, intrusions and deformations of gas, fluids and multiphase pipelines, to display and publish the measurement results in a user-friendly interface and to generate warnings when abnormal conditions are detected.