Research on Acoustic Emission In-Service Inspection for Large Above-Ground Storage Tank Floors

Much manpower is needed and a lot of materials are wasted when the floor of large above-ground storage tank (AST) is inspected with conventional methods which need to shut down the tank, then to empty and clean it before inspection. Due to the disadvantages of that, an in-service inspection method using acoustic emission (AE) technology is presented. By this mean the rational inspection plan and integrity evaluation of tank floors can be constructed. First, specific inspection steps are established based on the acoustic emission principle for large AST’s floors and the practical condition of AST in order to acquire the AE corrosion data. Second, analysis method of acoustic emission dataset is studied. Finally, maintenance proposes are provided based on results of analysis for the corrosion status of the tank floors. In order to evaluate the performance of our method, an in-service field inspection is practiced on product oil tank with a volume of 5000 cubic meters. Then a traditional inspection procedure using magnetic flux leakage (MFL) technology is followed up. Comparative analysis of the results of the two inspection methods shows that there is consistency in localizing the position of corrosion between them. The feasibility of inservice inspection of AST’s floors with AE is demonstrated.