Fault detection in conductive pipelines by time domain reflectometry

An experimental investigation is performed to carry out the feasibility of using an electrical method for the detection of defects in conductive pipelines. The pipeline provided by an auxiliary conductor is treated as a transmission line, and the time domain reflectometry (TDR) technique is used to reveal the presence of holes or defects. The introduction of the auxiliary conductor permits to characterize the propagation of electrical signals along the pipeline avoiding the dependence on the pipeline installation (i.e., presence of ground, impact of the weather conditions on the ground electrical parameters, etc.). Suitable statistical processing of the TDR measurements allows the pipeline fault identification. The proposed method is quite appealing since it provides a continuous and economic diagnostic method for testing the pipeline integrity