Over the last two weeks Project GRAID has been undertaking the first ‘live’ site trial of their inspection robot.
This has been the culmination of over 3 years of development for a new platform to enable live inspection of the National Gas Transmission System for National Grid Gas Transmission (NGGT). The robot performed above and beyond expectations and was well received by all who saw the operation.
During the two weeks on site the robot has been working at pressures up to 63 bar pressure and travelled through unpiggable pipelines to take wall thickness measurements of the pipeline at various locations. Key areas of interest for inspection were above ground pipe supports, the transition from above to below ground and areas around welds located below ground. The team also recorded lots of interesting video footage confirming the good condition of the pipework. This included valve inspection, confirming the condition of the ball valves on site.
The team are now busy checking and processing the thickness measurement data with Pipeline Integrity Engineers (PIE) to help build the pipeline condition model for the site.
Throughout the time on site, many visitors were shown the robot, keen to see it in action. Several have been involved in the project and many more interested to see the future potential of the robot for NGGT.
A big thank you to all the partners on the project who helped to make this possible. We are now looking forward to the next planned trial at Bacton next month.
If you would like to know any more about Project GRAID check out or Knowledge Base or go to Project GRAID’s website or contact us here.
