Case Study: Monitoring Corrosion Under Insulation in ATEX/IECEx Hazardous Areas
CorrosionRADAR leverages wireless technology to provide long-range Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI) monitoring. When they needed a way to deploy their innovative solution safely to customers in ATEX and IECEx hazardous areas, they turned to Extronics. With our grounding in wireless expertise and long years of experience providing safe products for hazardous areas since 1992, we were able to find the best way forward.
The Background
CorrosionRADAR designs and supplies the world’s longest-range Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI) monitoring technology for pipelines, refineries, and more. The patented system enables proactive automated monitoring instead of time-consuming and reactive manual inspections – reducing downtime, reducing risk, and reducing costs.
Corrosion and moisture sensors are permanently embedded adjacent to pipelines, tanks, towers or vessels, under any insulation. These sensors then provide real-time data on the asset health with regards to corrosion or moisture presence. The CorrosionRADAR system can localise any corrosion under insulation, allowing early repairs to be undertaken. This minimises corrosion damage and enables focused efficient inspection and maintenance programs. This is a vast improvement over standard Risk Based Inspection (RBI) approaches.
The Challenge
CorrosionRADAR’s ground-breaking solution is well-suited to use in industries such as oil & gas, chemical or petrochemical, where the impact of corrosion is high and where it is impractical and expensive to continuously monitor assets using current inspection technologies. However, their system needed to be certified for use in hazardous areas with potentially explosive atmospheres, which is required by many of their customers.
They needed a way to install their patented sensors into ATEX and IECEx hazardous areas to better serve their customers. The sensors also connect via wireless gateways to deliver information back to the control centre, so they needed a partner who understood how to maintain peak wireless performance whilst ensuring the safe operation of specialist wireless equipment in explosive atmospheres.
