Abstract: There have been several failures in power plant feedwater piping systems due to wall thinning caused by flow- accelerated corrosion of the inner surface. Detection of wastage in susceptible pipes is costly as traditional NDE methods such as ultrasonic testing entail removal and reinstallation of insulation over many meters of pipework. Radiography is one solution to this problem, but it is slow to apply and requires careful attention to safety. The RTD Incotest system uses pulsed eddy current technology to measure pipewall thickness through insulation and external cladding. The technology has been licensed from Arco, Inc., who originally developed the technique for large diameter pipelines and storage tanks where the area interrogated was made deliberately large. This paper describes an optimized Incotest systems which can detect and measure internal or external wall wastage which is more localized and typical of flow-accelerated corrosion. Improvements have also been made to the inspection and data acquisition in order to increase the inspection rate and overall productivity. Ultimately the performance of the optimized Incotest system has been verified on samples which contain artificial and real corrosion. !17
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