Research on In-service Detection for Axial Cracks on Drill Pipe Using the Feed-through Alternating Current Field Measurement

Drill pipe is a critical and vulnerable component in oil gas industry. A novel feed-through alternating current field measurement(ACFM) is proposed to achieve in-service detection for axial cracks on the surface of drill pipe. The finite element model is built by ANSYS software for analyzing the induced electromagnetic field distribution and disturbance caused by the axial crack on the external surface of drill pipe. Signal features of the crack are extracted through quantitatively analyzing the relationship between the size of crack and disturbance field. On the basis of theory and FEM simulation, the feed-through ACFM system is set up and proved by the axial crack of drill pipe detection experiments. The results show that, the signal features of Bx and Bz from the feed-through ACFM system show the depth and length information of the axial crack respectively on pipe string, and the lift-off effect can meet the demands of in-service detection for drill pipe. Furthermore, the feed-through ACFM system with sensors array can detect all the axial cracks in-service with a single pass scanning.