6th Pipeline Technology Conference 2011

Enhanced Pipeline Monitoring with Fiber Optic Sensors

Jochen Frings,
ILF Consulting Engineers, Germany
jochen.frings@ilf.com

Abstract

Pipelines are efficient, highly reliable and safe means of transportation. However, although the
number of leaks could be reduced since the early 70’s of the last century due to improved design
and maintenance procedures as well as improved materials, leaks still appear. Most of these are
originated by external causes such as digging excavators or slope movements despite intensive
pipeline right of way surveillance by foot, car and out of the air.

These events are a clear sign for a monitoring gap. Due to the highly distributed nature of pipelines
with classical technology very high investments for point sensors including power and
communication facilities would have been necessary to allow complete coverage with real time
monitoring capabilities along the pipeline route.

The technical evolution of fiber optic sensing technologies allows closing large parts of this
monitoring gap. With a maximum active sensor length of up to 30 kilometer and local resolution
down to one meter these distributed fiber optic sensors are apt to detect various external leak
causes and actual leak locations by sensing temperature, strain and vibrations and even sound.

After a short introduction to the technical approaches for distributed fiber optic sensing, an
overview on pipeline related applications in the field of leakage detection, third party activity
monitoring, ground movement detection and integrity monitoring will be presented.

Finally insight to some engineering aspects of fiber optic sensing applications will be given.

1 INTRODUCTION

Pipelines are part of the backbone for modern communities’ lifestyle and are
absolutely indispensable for transportation of water, gas, oil and all kinds of
products.

Faults in these systems do not only result in service outages and financial losses but
bear the potential of spillages causing environmental pollution or even disastrous
accidents.

Due to this, governments, engineering companies and industry associations have

developed design, operation and maintenance standards for pipelines (e.g. TRFL
(19) in Germany) based on which the number of leaks could be reduced drastically

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since the 60’s and early 70’s of the last century. As a result pipelines today are
highly reliable and safe means of transportation.

However leaks and disastrous events still appear. Statistically about 50% of all leaks
were caused by third party activities according to the European gas and oil
transportation industries’ recent yearly reports (1) and (2) followed by construction /
material failure, corrosion and ground movement.

In conclusion most leaks could be avoided, if the third party activities could be
detected in time to intervene before the actual leak appears. Despite often massive
efforts to monitor the pipeline’s right of way by walking, driving and flying along the
right of way complete coverage of the pipeline right of way with real time monitoring
equipment has been impossible for a long time. This is because of the prohibitive
cost for installation, operation and maintenance of literally thousands of point
sensors like vibration or motion detectors and video cameras which would have to be
installed including power supply and communication facilities along the pipeline route
with classic technology.

These and many more issues can be resolved with the help of distributed fiber optic
sensor cables, which are sensible over their complete length up to the range of 30
kilometers and which are able to detect temperatures, strain, vibration and sound
with high location accuracy and absolute resolution. Since fiber optic cables are
insensitive to EMC, designed for harsh environments and independence of additional
field power supply or additional communication installations they are optimally suited
for highly distributed pipeline monitoring applications.

Based on these advantages distributed fiber optic sensing has been applied
successfully in a variety of applications already and thus can be considered to be a
field proven technology.

However, the technical evolution of distributed fiber optic sensing is still ongoing.
New products with improved sensing technology and new signal analysis algorithms
allow in combination with permanently increasing computing performance higher
sensibility, detection speed and thus new applications.

In the following a short introduction to the distributed sensing technology will be

provided, before an overview on several applications of the technology is presented
and some engineering aspects are discussed.

2 FIBER OPTIC CABLES ARE DISTRIBUTED SENSORS

Fiber optic cables are standard equipment for transmission of voice, video and other
data and are frequently installed along pipelines and often used to enable
communication between and remote control of individual stations of the system.

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The same standard optical fibers (typically single mode) are suitable to measure
several physical effects with high absolute and local accuracy.

2.1 Scattering

Fiber optic cables are typically designed such that scattering effects are minimized to
maximize transmission distance and data rate. However, it could be shown that
some scattering effects of injected laser light depend on the fiber optic cable ambient
conditions (temperature [T], strain [ε]) (3) as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Scattering effects in fibre optic cables caused by temperature [T] or strain [ε], (3)

1) Rayleigh scattering:
Elastic scattering of light based on density and composition fluctuations within
the cable material. Scattering itself is not sensible to ambient conditions, but
used for fiber integrity sensing and interferometric sensing applications.

2) Raman scattering:
Inelastic scattering of photons due to molecular vibration within the fiber
material. The magnitude of the molecular vibration and the scattered signal is
influenced by the environmental temperature.

3) Brillouin scattering:
Based on time dependent density variations of the fiber material. The
wavelength of the scattered signal is depending on the ambient temperature
and the strain or vibration of the optical fiber.

To measure the Raman and Brillouin scattering effects advanced and specialized
optical time domain reflectometers (OTDR) are applied. These measurement
devices send short laser pulses into the fiber and analyze the time-distance related
reflection/scattering signals with regards to frequency and amplitude of the desired
scattering effect. In consequence it becomes possible to measure strain and
temperature along the fiber, as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Temperature and strain profile along optical fiber (4)

Multiple products are available on the market. Typical temperature resolution is in

the range of 0,10K, while strain resolution can be in the area of 20με, both with a
local resolution in the range of 1m, while the absolute ranges largely depend on the
cable construction. In all cases improvement of resolution corresponds to increased
time for measurement and hence both have to be adapted application specific.
Maximum sensor lengths for single mode fiber based Raman and Brillouin systems
typically are in the range of 20 to 30 kilometers, while multi mode fiber based Raman
systems typically have a reach of up to 8 kilometers

While for Brillouin scattering temperature measurement can be implemented with

standard telecom cable constructions (loose tube) which decouple the fiber from
external strain as much as possible, for strain measurements temperature
compensation has to be implemented. This can be achieved by using two fibers in
parallel: One coupled to e.g. the pipeline to measure strain changes; the other fiber
installed nearby and strain relieved to measure the temperature.

Based on strain sensing various vendors offer also detection of vibration (changing
strain).

3.2. Interferometers

For more than a century interferometers have been a well known solution to detect
very small changes of distances and the interferometer principles have been
successfully applied to fiber optic measurement configurations since the early days
of fiber optics.

With the advent of modern fiber optic components and using the constantly
improving computing performance for improved measurement signal analysis
research projects and several vendors developed configurations that can work as
distributed microphones/hydrophones with high sensibility and good location
accuracy.

For example a fiber optic configuration according to the Mach-Zehnder

Interferometer can detect sound waves or vibrations by analyzing signal interference

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between two separate sensor fibers (5) and thus can act as a hydrophone (see
Figure 3).

Figure 3: System block diagram presenting fibre optic interferometer

The interferometer can manage a sensing distance up to 40 km and its sensibility is

at least up to 3 m radius around the fiber optic cable.

According to (18) another system sends two accurately timed pulses and analyses
the interference of the Rayleigh scattering signals and thus is able to detect sounds.
Sensitive cable length of up to 50 kilometers is claimed to be possible.

Intelligent signal analysis is necessary to identify and separate farming machines,

underground construction works, digging, tapping and other events which are subject
of a specific training phase.

Another approach to overcome the weak locating capabilities of standard

interferometers is described in (17) were an interferometer is combined with Brillouin
instrument. While the interferometer allows precise analysis of the event, the
Brillouin instrument allows to locate the event precisely.

3 PIPELINE APPLICATIONS FOR DISTRIBUTED FIBER OPTIC SENSORS

Based on the above it becomes clear that distributed fiber optic sensors are almost
ideal for many types of pipeline monitoring applications and several of these
applications have been implemented during recent years all over the industry.
Unfortunately it is not possible to give a complete overview and thus the following
should be considered as examples only.

3.1 Leak Detection

Loss of transported medium due to pipeline leaks typically results into one or more of
the following detectable effects:
1. Local cooling due to Joule-Thomson effect (high pressure gas pipelines)

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2. Soil temperature change due to temperature difference between soil and

emanated fluids and due to evaporation effects.

3. Especially in high pressure applications the emanating medium generates

detectable sounds.

Based on Raman or Brillouin scattering effects the temperature changes can be

detected, if the medium temperature is different from the soil temperature. Hence
distributed temperature sensing has been reported to be applied for natural gas,
brine, phenol, sulfur, LNG, crude oil and other mediums and allows detecting even
very small leaks (for example (3),(6),(7)). Compared to the conventional intrinsic
Pipeline Monitoring methods this approach has the additional advantage to be
completely independent of any process conditions.

Even the periodical opening and closing of small leaks in gas pipelines due to
freezing effects can be identified with modern signal analysis methods.

For offshore pipelines the application of leak sound detection is reported in (6) based
on a Brillouin strain measurement system.

Distributed temperature sensing is used in all cases to improve the performance of

computational monitoring systems. This is not only due to the fact that distributed
temperature sensing has been installed at pipelines which already had
computational monitoring systems. Although distributed temperature sensing is a
well proven technology that has shown to be able to detect very small leaks in short
time, it is very hard to calculate the minimum detectable leak size or to guarantee a
maximum detection time which in many cases are necessary to receive pipeline
operation licenses.

3.2 Ground Movement Detection and Structural Health Monitoring

Geohazards like earthquakes, landslides and surface subsidence result into ground
movement and thus put additional stress on the pipelines, tunnels and other
underground infrastructures. Distributed fiber optic strain sensors have been applied
in two ways to identify the endangering ground movements:

 Strain sensing fibers have been attached directly to the pipeline walls to
measure the walls’ strain changes and to conclude on the consequential
movements and deformations (8), (9), (10). In case a sudden strain increase
is detected, the pipe internal pressure can be reduced to reduce the total
stress and such to reduce the risk and/or effects of a leak.

 Strain sensing fiber optic cables are installed in parallel and close to the
infrastructure (11). This method allows covering large route sections due to
simplified cable installation method.

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While pipeline sections know to have an increased risk of ground movements have
been monitored with point sensors already during recent years, distributed fiber optic
monitoring can be installed along longer stretches of the pipeline. Thus also strain
changes due to planned ground works (e.g. trenchless installation of crossing
pipelines and cables) can be monitored.

3.3 Third Party Activities

The majority of all reported pipeline leak incidents has been caused by third party
activities including construction and agricultural works, illegal tapping and intentional
damaging. By applying distributed strain sensing (e.g. (6),(7)) or interferometer
based hydrophones (e.g.(5), (18), (21)) along the pipeline or other buried
infrastructure, it becomes possible to detect approaching heavy earth working
machines, actual digging (manual or machine supported), metallic contact with the
pipeline and other sound and vibration signals. For example the system installed
along the BTC pipeline (21) could detect a third party activity including manual
digging. Because knowing the exact location of the event, immediate response could
prevent illegal tapping and consequential environmental and financial damages even
during test operation.

3.4 Fire Detection

Distributed temperature sensing with fiber optic cables is used as heat detector for
fire detection (13) in tunnels. Because the cable is sensitive along its complete
length and because the temperature can be detected within a wide range it becomes
possible to determine the fire position and development very detailed. In
consequence ventilation and other fire fighting measurements can be coordinated
efficiently.

3.5 Power Cable and Transformer Monitoring

Power cable isolation (XLPE) typically is rated for an operating temperature of 90 oC.
Especially in power cable tunnels, when cables are bundled and mounted to cable
trays it is possible that this temperature is exceeded in high load situations. To this
end distributed fibre optic temperature sensors have been installed inside the cable
isolation (e.g. (14), (15)), so that a direct temperature assessment becomes possible
with high local resolution and thus countermeasures can be initiated easily.

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3.6 Status Monitoring of Water Mains

Pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipes (PCCP) are widely used in water mains.
However in several cases PCCP did not show to be as durable as expected, which
resulted in several water main ruptures with considerable damages and a large
number of smaller defects resulting into water losses. It has been shown (16) that
the stability of PCCP correlates with the number of broken wires inside the pipe. As
the breaking wire emanates a special sound this can be detected by an acoustic
sensitive fibre optic sensor installed inside the pipeline. Based on the pipe book a
software package can than count the number of broken wires and can issue an
alarm in case the total number of broken wires or the number of wires broken within
a certain time period exceeds a limit.

Since the wire break event is only very short the pulsed Brillouin based acoustic
detectors often do not detect sufficient information for clear identification of the wire
break event. On the other side interferometers such as Sagnac- or Michelson
interferometer analyse the signal continuously and such receive all available
information about the wire break sound - but they are weak in locating the signal.
Thus a combined interferometer and Brillouin detector is described in (17) and has
been applied to several water mains in the United States of America.

3.7 Pig Position Detection

Systems designed to detect sounds of third party activities are also apt to detect the
sounds created by pigs according to e.g. (22).

4 SOME ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF DISTRIBUTED SENSING

Since standard telecom cables are optimized for long distance signal transmission
with protection of all fibers against strain (e.g. jelly field tubes) or against
environmental influences (e.g. multiple sheath layers), for measurement purposes
these are not always the best solution. For example strain relieved fibers are not
able to measure strain and thick multilayer sheaths increase measurement delay for
temperature. In consequence various measurement cable constructions are
available in the market. For example there are cables with specialized profiles to
allow gluing the cable to any type of structure such as steel bridges or concrete
tunnels. Other cables are specialized for high temperature measurements and more.

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Figure 4: Application specific sensor location along pipeline

Of course the sensor position decides about the correctness of the measurement.
Typical locations of the sensor cables relative to for example a pipeline are indicated
in Figure 4. For liquid leak detection the sensor should be installed below the pipe
and on top for leak detection of most gaseous mediums, while pipeline strain
obviously can be measured only, if the fiber is directly bonded to the pipeline. Typical
gas and telecom cable positions are suitable for third party interference as well as for
ground movement detection. For different applications similar considerations apply.

To achieve a clear leak detection signal at least 2 to 5 oK temperature difference

between the fluid in the pipeline and the soil temperature around the sensor are
required, although datasheets state to have accuracy down to 0,1 oK. It has to be
proven that this minimum temperature difference can be guaranteed throughout the
whole year despite all seasonal temperature changes and for all pipeline operation
states to avoid blind periods.

While this is normally no problem for e.g. high pressure gas pipelines (due to the
strong Joule-Thomson effect), detailed seasonal analysis of soil temperature profiles
is necessary for typical crude and product pipelines, even in case the transported
medium has a much higher temperature than the not influenced soil temperature.
For simplification only a single season scenario (winter, operating pipeline) is shown
in the figure below. It shows the results of our analysis for a crude oil pipeline under
the assumption of 33oC medium temperature and -10oC air temperature after several
weeks of continuous operation and allows estimation of the minimum necessary
distance between the pipeline wall and the sensor cable.

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Figure 5: Soil temperature profile around oil pipeline (winter)

For the required temperature difference a distance of more than half a meter from
the bottom of the pipe has to be obeyed.

The effectiveness of most distributed fiber optic sensor systems is based not only on
the sensor design and installation but also on the signal analysis program design.
These pattern analysis mechanisms have to be trained carefully to ensure maximum
detection rates with minimum false alarm rates.

5 CONCLUSION

Distributed fibre optic sensing is a field proven technology for online monitoring of
temperature, strain, vibration and sound over long distances with high local
resolution that is apt to improve pipeline integrity, safety and security considerably.

Many different applications have already been implemented in the industry and
constantly ideas for new applications are being created.

Although the basic principles for distributed fibre optic sensing have been known for
more than two decades, the evolution of these technologies does not yet come to an
end and especially during recent years improvements could be made by using the
constantly increased computing power for improved analysis of the measurements.

Distributed fibre optic sensing systems installed along pipelines must be considered
as integral parts of pipeline instrumentation and application and installation of these
systems have to be properly engineered to get the desired results.

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6 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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20. S. Scott, M. Barufett. Worldwide Assessment of Industry Leak Detection

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