Development of an experimental method based on Compton backscattering to measure the wax thickness in petroleum pipelines

Abstract

A: Wax deposition inside pipelines is a major concern in oil and gas industries, and it must be continuously monitored. In this paper, a mathematical-experimental combined method based on the Compton scattering was proposed to determine the thickness of the wax deposited inside the industrial pipes. For this purpose, first, the relationship between the intensity of the backscattered gamma-rays and the thickness of the wax inside the pipe was mathematically modeled. Then, an experimental setup was prepared for measuring the intensity of the backscattered gamma-rays from the pipes with different wall thicknesses and different wax widths. Finally, the experimentally measured counts were used by the mathematical model to calculate the wax thickness. The obtained results revealed that using this method, the wax thickness can be determined with a mean error of less than 5%. K: Inspection with gamma rays; Gamma detectors (scintillators, CZT, HPGe, HgI etc); Scintillators, scintillation and light emission processes (solid, gas and liquid scintillators)