On the reliability of an automated ultrasonic system for hull inspection in ship-based oil production units

This paper first describes an automated ultrasound-based system developed for underwater nondestructive inspection of superficial defects caused by corrosion in hulls of ship-based floating units employed in offshore oil production. The main advantage of the system is that neither the production needs to be stopped nor the oil tanks need to be emptied during the hull inspection process. Afterwards a special focus is given to the system reliability by investigating some aspects of its probability of detection (PoD) curve. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.