Parametric Studies on Attenuation of Cylindrical Guided-Waves

摘要

Guided wave techniques have been used for pipeline inspection because of their long-range inspection capability. One of main concerns of these techniques is how ones decide axial interval of sensors. This question is related to the characteristics of attenuation of cylindrical guided waves. Parametric density concept is proposed for a long-range pipeline inspection. This concept is designed to obtain the attenuation of ultrasonic guided waves propagating in underwater pipeline without complicated calculation of attenuation dispersion curves. For this study, three pipe materials are considered, then different transporting fluids are assumed, and four different pipe geometries are adopted. It is shown that the attenuation values based on the parametric density concept reasonably match with the attenuation values obtained from the dispersion curves. However, it seems that the parametric concept is only applicable for fluid-filled underwater pipes. The limitations of the parametric density concept are also discussed.