An AI-enhanced pressure transient system that estimates wax and debris build-up and locates stuck pigs in oil & gas pipelines - without shutting the line down or opening it up.
Wax and debris build-up reduces flow area and transportation efficiency in oil & gas pipelines — often invisibly, until it becomes an expensive problem.
Reduced flow area increases the transportation (pumping) power needed to maintain throughput.
Build-up progressively narrows the effective pipeline diameter, cutting delivered volumes.
Severe blockages raise the probability of a stuck cleaning pig — an expensive, high-downtime event.
Under-deposit and microbially-induced corrosion, plus inconsistent inhibitor coverage and product contamination.
See how iPTran uses pressure transient analysis to locate stuck pigs and profile wax build-up in pipelines.
iPTran builds on the classical, physics-based pressure transient analysis and enhances it with Industrial IoT sensing and pre-trained AI models — improving accuracy, sensitivity and turnaround time. Applicable fo new or existing pipelines carrying various fluids: Oil, Gas or Water.
In-house developed edge devices acquire pressure (and where available, temperature & flow) at high sampling rates.
Utilizes pressure waves generated by either pump operations or controlled valve operations; these get reflected off deposits, debris or a stuck pig & are captured as impedance mismatches.
Cloud or locally-deployed AI-enhanced software analyzes this data and converts it into effective internal diameter profile, revealing the location and extent of wax build-up and debris.
Pipeline internal-diameter profile, debris location and stuck-pig positions are displayed on local SCADA or a custom dashboard.
On an 18" dia, ~7 km LPG pipeline section, iPTran was tasked with locating three stuck pigs. High-frequency pressure transmitters captured acoustic wave reflections generated by the pigs acting as impedance mismatches. Using acoustic reflectometry, the time-domain data was converted to the frequency domain to identify dominant reflection frequencies, which were then correlated with the speed of sound in the respective fluids (LPG and water) to calculate pig distance.
Result: Two of the three stuck pigs were successfully located.
Non-intrusive & safe. A simple procedure applicable on new and existing pipelines, for both oil and gas.
Industry 4.0 solution. Enhanced accuracy over the classical physics-based method, via an IIoT + AI system, with quick turnaround.
Cost-effective. Lowers total cost of ownership by informing optimized pigging programs and predictive maintenance.
Developed in India. An indigenous IIoT and AI system, furthering the "Make in India" program.
Whether it's wax profiling, debris location, or a stuck-pig recovery — our team can walk you through how iPTran applies to your pipeline.