Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration


Wireless detection of erosion corrosion

6 July 2020 Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration

While many forms of corrosion can be anticipated depending on the presence of corrosion causing factors such as H2S, water injection and oxygen in dry pipelines, erosion caused as a result of sand or solids cannot be directly identified. Since many sudden pipeline leaks and failures can be attributed to this phenomenon, it is a hidden threat to asset integrity.

While the corrosion stops after passive layer formation, solids, especially sand particles, often erode this layer, enhancing the corrosion rate. The sand can travel up to the terminals even with the best downhole completions or sand filters. The effect gets accelerated with high velocity of fluid for wells with high production rates. By detecting the sand at the wellheads, the flow rates can be altered in real time to achieve fluid velocity below critical velocity.

While the problem is complex, combining sand detection with the real-time corrosion monitoring downstream of the choke provides a complete solution. The areas with altered cross-section are subjected to increased velocity of the fluids with accelerated erosion. Devices measuring the change in the cross-section of the flowline provide real-time corrosion monitoring. It is also possible to estimate the life of the flowline with the current corrosion rates.

Emerson’s Sand Monitors, together with Permasense-corrosion monitoring, can be used to detect the erosion corrosion. Both devices are non-intrusive and easy to install and belong to the family of pervasive sensing devices. The combined solution is available in wireless configuration. This provides seamless data transfer of sand and resulting corrosion to the control room. The production engineers may view this data when transmitted to the control room for analysis and decision making. This facilitates real-time production optimisation.

The solution is believed to fetch a 66% ROI for a field with around 500-1000 wells. Software – called Fieldwatch – can provide the sand detection and erosion data for the field with ‘report by exception’ capability. This proves very beneficial for the production team to plan the well interventions and other actions in advance, i.e., a predictive maintenance strategy.

This wireless solution can help avoid manual inspections, which can be misleading due to human errors in observation and interpretation. It also helps through seamless data connectivity to the control room, leveraging predictive maintenance and a step towards digital transformation.


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