Ineos' Experience in Pipeline Leak Detection Using Flow and Pressure Measurements

摘要

This paper has addressed the application of conventional flow and pressure measurements to real-time leak detection. Five case studies are presented covering supercritical and gaseous ethylene, ethane, liquid propylene, multi-product and crude oil pipelines with varying dimensions and complexities. With the exception of TSEP, all the other applications are retrofit to the existing pipeline and instrumentation systems. No special instrument or hardware has been required for the implementation of the LDS. All of the applications involve the interface of the LDS with the site SCADA or PLC systems. The scan interval varies between 2 and 10 seconds. As shown in Table 5, the coriolis flow meters have proven to be reliable for a wide range of fluid type and operating conditions. The operational experience on liquid propylene and both gaseous and supercritical ethylene has been successful. To maintain the accuracy of turbine flow meters for different products, online provers are required to recalibrate the meter curves. The performance of the clamp on ultrasonic flow meter is yet to be assessed after the commissioning of the new instrumentation. Due to the poor track record of clamp on ultrasonic flow meters, special care has been taken to install the meters with external protection and additional viscosity meters.