A Novel Magnetic Flux Leakage Sensor System for Inspecting Large Diameter Pipeline

The magnetic flux leakage (MFL) type non-destructive inspection can be performed only when the metal object is sufficiently magnetically saturated. Therefore, since the general MFL sensor system used for pipeline inspection must sufficiently saturate the pipe, the weight and size of MFL sensor system are inevitably increased according to the diameter or thickness of the pipe. However, if the weight of the MFL sensor system is excessively increased, it is difficult to drive, and thus it is difficult to inspect a pipe having a large diameter. In this paper, the novel MFL sensor system which can be inspected large-diameter pipes without increasing the weight of the MFL sensor system is proposed and compared to the conventional MFL sensor system used for the pipe inspection. Since the proposed MFL sensor system is a system that saturates the pipe locally, it has the advantage of being able to inspect the pipe regardless of the pipe diameter.