Semi-Finalists Again: Tomography for Tanks
That's right, another bronze medal (or was it silver? :) for Envisioning Labs in a global innovation competition from HeroX that involved finding creative ways to detect corrosion at the bottom of oil tanks without emptying them.
CROSS-POLLINATING FROM HEALTHCARE
Inspired by digital imaging techniques in the healthcare industry, our team proposed a tomographic imaging approach to detect corrosion and degradation artifacts that impact the health of Aboveground Storage Tanks (AST).
As per the challenge description:
"Tank inspections are extremely costly, laborious, and creates a significant safety risk as they are performed manually, requiring storage tanks to be taken out-of-service, cleaned, and degassed to allow workers to enter the confined space."
Transducers would be placed around the tank bottom sending elastic waves that would map the tank floor.
WAVES THAT MAP
Our proposal extrapolated commercial and scientific prior art, and used guided elastic waves (think sound-like waves) to propagate through the floor of tanks, mapping the thickness of its planar structure and identifying pits and cracks. Our transducer solution enabled completely external installation on the tank without requiring anything inside for tanks up to ~15 meters in diameter (which appears to be the majority of tanks). It would work with pressurized tanks, very hot or cold tanks, or tanks containing highly corrosive liquids just as easily as atmospheric temperature and pressure fuel tanks.
While this solution should be applicable to a majority of operating tanks saving time, money, effort and helping prevent environmental leaks, it faced challenges with tanks larger than about 15 meters diameter where transducers would need to be placed on the floor inside the tank. Deploying transducers to the floor inside means dealing with sludge and sediment in the tank, in which case in-service-tank robotic solutions may be the better solution. Our tomographic imaging structural health approach would have the additional benefit of gathering massive amounts of data over long periods of time, which can build up ever better analysis as time goes by.
Ultrasonic guided wave tomography for the inspection of the fuel tanks floor
A big thanks to Chrysalix Ventures and Petronas Global for sponsoring creative industrial challenges that incentivize the developing of innovations that matter.