[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 126 (Tuesday, July 1, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 35539-35540]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-17170]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Research and Special Programs Administration


Fourth Quarterly Performance Review Meeting on the Contract 
``Detection of Mechanical Damage in Pipelines'' (Contract DTRS-56-96-C-
0010)

AGENCY: Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of meeting.

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SUMMARY: RSPA invites the pipeline industry, in-line inspection 
(``smart pig'') vendors, and the general public to the fourth quarterly 
performance review meeting of progress on the contract ``Detection of 
Mechanical Damage in Pipelines.'' The meeting is open to anyone, and no 
registration is required. This contract is being performed by Battelle 
Memorial Institute (Battelle), along with the Southwest Research 
Institute, and Iowa State University. The contract is a research and 
development contract to develop electromagnetic in-line inspection 
technologies to detect and characterize mechanical damage and stress 
corrosion cracking. There will be a presentation on the status of the 
contract tasks, including a summary of the activity and progress during 
the past quarter and the projected activity for the next quarter.

DATES: The fourth quarterly performance review meeting will be held on 
July 24, 1997, beginning at 1:00 p.m. and ending around 5:00 p.m.

ADDRESSES: The quarterly review meeting will be held at the Adam's Mark 
Columbus Hotel, 50 Third Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215. The hotel's 
telephone number is (614) 228-5050.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lloyd W. Ulrich, Contracting Officer's 
Technical Representative, Office of Pipeline Safety, telephone: (202) 
366-4556, FAX: (202) 366-4566, e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    RSPA is conducting quarterly public meetings on the status of its 
contract ``Detection of Mechanical Damage in Pipelines'' (Contract 
DTRS-56-96-C-0010) because in-line inspection research is of immediate 
interest to the pipeline industry and in-line inspection vendors. RSPA 
will continue this practice throughout the contract, which may be up to 
three years. The meetings will allow disclosure of the results to all 
interested parties and will provide an opportunity for interested 
parties to ask Battelle questions concerning the research.
    The first meeting was conducted on October 22, 1996, in Washington, 
DC. The second quarterly review meeting was held on January 14, 1997 in 
Houston, Texas, in parallel with a meeting of the Gas Research 
Institute's (GRI) Nondestructive Evaluation Technical Advisory Group to 
enable significant participation by pipeline operators and inspection 
vendors. The third quarterly review meeting was held in Washington on 
May 5, 1997 in advance of the May 6-7, 1997, meetings of RSPA's two 
technical advisory committees, the Technical Pipeline Safety Standards 
Committee for gas pipelines and the Technical Hazardous Liquid Pipeline 
Safety Standards Committee for hazardous liquid pipelines. This, the 
fourth meeting is being held in Columbus at the end of another meeting 
of the Gas Research Institute's (GRI) Nondestructive Evaluation 
Technical Advisory Group.
    The research contract with Battelle is a cooperative effort between 
GRI and DOT, with GRI providing technical guidance.1 It is 
anticipated that every other meeting will be conducted in Washington, 
DC. Future meetings may be conducted in San Antonio, Texas (Southwest 
Research Institute); Ames, Iowa (Iowa State University); or Chicago, 
Illinois (Gas Research Institute). Each of the future meetings

[[Page 35540]]

will be announced in the Federal Register at least two weeks prior to 
the meeting.
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    \1\ See the notice of the first quarterly performance review 
meeting (61 FR 53484; Oct. 11, 1996) for information on the 
Memorandum of Understanding between DOT and GRI.
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    Attendance is open to all and does not require advanced 
registration nor advanced notification to RSPA. We specifically want 
that segment of the pipeline industry involved with in-line inspection 
to be aware of the status of this contract. To assure that the industry 
is well represented at these meetings, we have invited the major 
domestic in-line inspection company (Tuboscope-Vetco Pipeline Services) 
and the following pipeline industry trade associations: American 
Petroleum Institute, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, and 
the American Gas Association. Each has named an engineering/technical 
representative.

II. The Contract

    The Battelle contract is a research and development contract to 
evaluate and develop in-line inspection technologies for detecting 
mechanical damage and cracking, such as stress-corrosion cracking 
(SCC), in natural gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines. 
Third-party mechanical damage is one of the largest causes of pipeline 
failure, but existing in-line inspection tools cannot always detect or 
accurately characterize the severity of some types of third-party 
damage that can threaten pipeline integrity. Although SCC is not very 
common on pipelines, it usually appears in high-stressed, low-
population-density areas and only when a limited set of environmental 
conditions are met. Several attempts have been made to develop an in-
line inspection tool for SCC, but there is no commercially successful 
tool on the market.
    Under the contract, Battelle will evaluate and advance magnetic 
flux leakage (MFL) inspection technology for detecting mechanical 
damage and two electromagnetic technologies for detecting SCC. The 
focus is on MFL for mechanical damage because experience shows MFL can 
characterize some types of mechanical damage and can be successfully 
used for metal-loss corrosion under a wide variety of conditions. The 
focus for SCC is on electromagnetic technologies that can be used in 
conjunction with, or as a modification to, MFL tools. The technologies 
to be evaluated take advantage of the MFL magnetizer either by 
enhancing signals or using electrical currents that are generated by 
the passage of an inspection tool through a pipeline.
    The contract includes two major tasks during the base two years of 
the contract. Task 1 is to evaluate existing MFL signal generation and 
analysis methods to establish a baseline from which today's tools can 
be evaluated and tomorrow's advances measured. Then, it will develop 
improvements to signal analysis methods and verify them through testing 
under realistic pipeline conditions. Finally, it will build an 
experience base and defect sets to generalize the results from 
individual tools and analysis methods to the full range of practical 
applications.
    Task 2 is to evaluate two inspection technologies for detecting 
stress corrosion cracks. The focus in Task 2 is on electromagnetic 
techniques that have been developed in recent years and that could be 
used on or as a modification to existing MFL tools. Three subtasks will 
evaluate velocity-induced remote-field techniques, remote-field eddy-
current techniques, and external techniques for sizing stress corrosion 
cracks.
    A Task 3 is being considered for an option year to the contract. 
Task 3, if done, will verify the results from Tasks 1 and 2 by tests 
under realistic pipeline conditions. Task 3 will (1) extend the 
mechanical damage detection, signal decoupling, and sizing algorithms 
developed in the basic program to include the effects of pressure, (2) 
verify the algorithms under pressurized conditions in GRI's 4,700 foot, 
24-inch diameter Pipeline Simulation Facility (PSF) flow loop, and (3) 
evaluate the use of eddy-current techniques for characterizing cold 
working within mechanical damage.
    A drawback of present pig technology is the lack of a reliable pig 
performance verification procedure that is generally accepted by the 
pipeline industry and RSPA. The experience gained by the pipeline 
industry and RSPA with the use of the PSF flow loop in this project 
will provide a framework to develop procedures for evaluating pig 
performance. Defect detection reliability is critical if instrumented 
pigging is to be used as an in-line inspection tool in pipeline 
industry risk management programs.
    The ultimate benefits of the project could be more efficient and 
cost-effective operations, maintenance programs to monitor and enhance 
the safety of gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines. Pipeline 
companies will benefit from having access to inspection technologies 
for detecting critical mechanical damage and stress-corrosion cracks. 
Inspection tool vendors will benefit by understanding where 
improvements are beneficial and needed. These benefits will support 
RSPA's long-range objective of ensuring the safety and reliability of 
the gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipeline infrastructure.

    Issued in Washington, D. C. on June 25, 1997.
Richard B. Felder ,
Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety.
[FR Doc. 97-17170 Filed 6-30-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-60-P