A probe for in situ, remote, detection of defects in buried plastic natural gas pipelines

Several techniques are available to determine the integrity of in situ metal pipeline but very little is available in the literature to determine the integrity of plastic pipelines. Since the decade of the 1970s much of the newly installed gas distribution and transmission lines in the United States are fabricated from polyethylene or other plastic. A probe has been developed to determine the in situ integrity of plastic natural gas pipelines that can be installed on a traversing mechanism (pig) to detect abnormalities in the walls of the plastic natural gas pipeline from the interior. This probe has its own internal power source and can be deployed into existing natural gas supply lines. Utilizing the capacitance parameter, the probe inspects the pipe for flaws and records the data internally which can be retrieved later for analysis. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.