The Development And Use Of Smart

Gauge Pigs In Offshore Applications

By Les Graves and Tony Yates,
Copipe Systems, Ltd., Aberdeen,
Scotland

onsiderable time, effort and

cost are used in recovering
gauge pigs from the subsea to
inspect gauge plate conditions
prior to beginning hydrotest operations.
Vessels used for pigging have to disconnect, travel to the receiver and recover the
gauge pig to deck for visual inspection.
The
Copipe
Arrival
Condition
Monitoring Equipment (ACME, also
referred to as Smart Gauge plate; UK and
international patents pending) provides a
means of determining the condition of a
pig-mounted gauge plate after a gauging
run, without the need to retrieve the pig
for examination. ACME operates by using
electrical circuits bonded to the gauge
plate to control the frequency of a signaling device. Gauge plate damage results in
circuits being broken, which in turn causes a frequency change.
ACME offers significant project cost
savings by reducing vessel movements
and intervention requirements and providing a direct progression into hydrotesting
if the gauge plate is acceptable (Fig. 1).

mentation adaptation to sense the plate

condition. Prior to setting up the plate, a
Go/No Go criterion is agreed, based on
the deflection of a bent peal relative to an
undeflected petal (the usual condition for
acceptance). Based upon this criterion, an
electrical break sensor detects any deformation beyond the agreed criterion.
The gauge plate sensor provides two
possible outputs:
Short circuitplate is within agreed
GO condition; and
Open circuitplate is in NO GO
condition.
The output from the gauge plate
sensor is used on a pig receipt in the
receiver to switch the output of a pigmounted pinger between two conditions to announce plate condition (this
can be frequency, pulse pattern, on/off,
etc., depending upon the application
and other systems in use). The ACME
signal is detected at the receiver, and
the gauge plate condition is broadcast
from there, back to the launching end
or another convenient location, using
either the Pig Home system beacons,
or a dedicated transmitter system.
Existing gauge plates may be easily
adapted to operate with ACME. A typical
plate arrangement is shown here:

Figure 3

Development And Testing Program

A section of 16-inch pipe had been provided to Copipe as part of the preparatory
phase for the Draugen commissioning
project. This pipe was set up in Copipes
yard between two coiled tubing reels. One
reel was used as an anchor and the winch
on the second reel was used to pull pigs
through the pipe sample (Fig. 4).

Figure 4
Figure 2

Figure 1

The ACME System

ACME is an add-on system for a standard gauging pig which enables the facility to remotely determine the condition of
the gauge plate on the pigs arrival in the
pig receiver. This avoids the necessity to
recover a gauge pig to determine the condition of its gauge plate, thereby saving
significant vessel and intervention costs
when working at subsea levels.
ACME uses a standard aluminum
petalled gauge plate with a simple instru-

An undamaged plate not only confirms

acceptable bore, allowing the pig to be
removed when more convenient, for
example at tie-in stage, but also allows
high-pressure receivers to be used to
allow immediate hydrotesting without
vessel relocation, receiver removal and
pig recovery.
If damage does occur to the plate,
when the Copipe impact logger is used, it
is possible to determine where the plate
became damaged, (which requires recovery of the pig). This can be used to rule
out the possibility of damage at
launch/receive (Fig. 3).

Pipeline & Gas Journal/August 2001/pipelineandgasjournalonline.com

To provide a means of damaging the

gauge pig, a threaded pin was fitted
through the pipe wall at the midpoint of
the pipe sample, in the 12 oclock position.
This pin was inserted such that 40 mm of
protrusion was caused. This was sufficient
to ensure that the gauge plate would be
damaged, and is not the minimum damage
that the system can detect (Fig. 5).
Figure 5

PPSA
Special
Section

The pipe sample was cleaned by

drawing a utility brush pig through it
three times prior to the gauging trials.
The pin was not fitted during this cleaning operation.
The ACME system utilizes a gauge
plate that is modified by the addition of
electrical sensors in a set of grooves
machined into the rear face of the plate.
The location of the grooves relative to the
outer edge of the gauge plate determines
the sensitivity of the plate. The plates
used in the trials had been constructed to
give a sensitivity matching the value being
defined by the Draugen project.

plate. The pig used for the test was an IPP

16-inch gauging pig of specific design for
Draugen (Fig. 6).
The epoxy filling used to protect the
electrical components is extremely tough.
Plates are hydrostatically tested to their
maximum service pressure and water jetted to confirm the robustness of the plate.
Figure 7

al tuning was used to detect the output

from the pinger. In this mode of operation, the gauge plate may be considered
as a switch, the function of which is to
change over the pinger frequency.
The acoustic antenna of the pinger
was arranged to protrude through the
front bulkhead of the pig, and can be
seen in Figure 8 with the hauling loop
removed from the pig nose.
Figure 8

Figure 6

Visually, the ACME plates are almost

indistinguishable from standard plates:
only the connector for the electrical connection, and the epoxy potting protection
for the electrical sensors distinguish the

The rectangular items around the

waist of the pig are pickup magnets for
collecting any metal objects from the
pipeline, and are not a part of the ACME
system (Fig. 7).
The signaling device used in the test
was a dual-frequency acoustic pinger, set
to operate in pulsed mode and to transmit
according to the following convention:
Gauge plate intact ......................30 KHz
Gauge plate damaged ................21 KHz
A standard pinger receiver with manu-

The test procedure was simply to insert

the pig into the pipe, and then pull it through
on the winch at approximately 0.5 meters per
second, stopping it at the far end of the pipe,
and listening to the output frequency of the
pinger to determine plate condition. Two
runs were carried out in this manner.

Outcome Of tests
Figure 9 shows the pig about to be

Pipeline & Gas Journal/August 2001/pipelineandgasjournalonline.com

inserted, and the peg can also be seen

at the top of the pipe. On both test
runs, one plate petal was bent back by
approximately 15 mm.
Figure 9

Test One
In the first test, the pinger was heard
at 30 KHz, despite the plate being obviously damaged. On recovery of the pig,
the electrical connector to the plate was
removed and the pinger continued to
transmit at 30 KHz. The pig was dismantled. It was found that the nose connector to the pinger was dislodged by the
assembly method used, and was shorting in its receptacle, thus causing the 30
KHz signal. A new plate was fitted and
tested fully, and the pig returned to the
test pipe.

Test Two
In the second test, the pinger was
heard at 21 KHz after the pull through,
confirming the successful function of
the system.

Further Tests
The second successful test was repeated an additional six times. On each occasion, the system functioned perfectly.
The pig was also equipped with a
Copipe impact logger, which is a small
cylindrical instrument approximately 50
mm x 50 mm. This records any impact
loading the pig experiences, and may be
used to determine where gauge plate damage occurred. Both logs were identical.
The small events (approximately 10g)
are the pig entering and leaving the pipe,
and the much larger 20g event is the plate
Figure 10

Pipeline & Gas Journal/August 2001/pipelineandgasjournalonline.com

being damaged. In a test of this type,

where speeds are low, this impact results
from the release of elastic energy in the
polyurethane of the pig as the pig rides
off the obstruction.
The gauge plate damage was similar in
both tests. The plate from test two is shown
in Figure 10. The mark where the pin struck
the plate can be clearly seen in this view.

Offshore Use
Since the development tests, ACME has
been successfully used on a number of
North Sea and international projects.
Diameters, lengths and water depths have
varied. Consistent success has created customer interest beyond expectation. P&GJ
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
The authors would like to acknowledge Halliburton
Subsea, EMC and Coflexip Stena Offshore Ltd.

Les Graves is operations director,

Pipeline & Excavation Services, for Copipe
Systems Ltd., which is part of PSL Pipeline
Process Excavation in Aberdeen, Scotland.
He has 26 years of experience in the
pipeline industry, primarily offshore services. He has an MSC in Engineering
Project Management from Lancaster
University. He is joint founder of Copipe
Pipeline Services with Alan Evett.