IRJET-PIPE INSPECTION SYSTEM: A REVIEW

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A robot/system capable of operating inactive pipelines would be of great commercial and industrialbenefit. Pipe inspection is necessary to locate defects due tocorrosion and wear while the pipe is transporting fluids.Because pipelines are typically buried underground, they arein contact with the soil and subject to corrosion, where thesteel pipe wall oxidizes, and effectively reducing wallthickness. Recently many plants' pipes and drains became oldand many robots to inspect these pipes were developed in thepast. Inspection robots are used in many fields of industry.One application of pipe inspection system is monitoring theinside of the pipes and channels, recognizing and solvingproblems through the interior of pipes or channels. This papergives a review of various methods of pipe inspectionconsidering the advantages and disadvantages of existingsystems.

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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | June-2015
www.irjet.net

e-ISSN: 2395-0056
p-ISSN: 2395-0072

PIPE INSPECTION SYSTEM: A REVIEW
Pramar P. Bakane1, Prashant Mujbaile2
1 Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering, DMIETR, WARDHA (INDIA)
Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shree Vyankatesh Polytechnic, WARDHA (INDIA)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------***----------------------------------------------------------------------2

Abstract - A robot/system capable of operating in
active pipelines would be of great commercial and industrial
benefit. Pipe inspection is necessary to locate defects due to
corrosion and wear while the pipe is transporting fluids.
Because pipelines are typically buried underground, they are
in contact with the soil and subject to corrosion, where the
steel pipe wall oxidizes, and effectively reducing wall
thickness. Recently many plants' pipes and drains became old
and many robots to inspect these pipes were developed in the
past. Inspection robots are used in many fields of industry.
One application of pipe inspection system is monitoring the
inside of the pipes and channels, recognizing and solving
problems through the interior of pipes or channels. This paper
gives a review of various methods of pipe inspection
considering the advantages and disadvantages of existing
systems.

[1] Kentarou. Nishijima, Yixiang.Sun, RupeshKumar
Srivastava, Harutoshi Ogai1and Bishakh. Bhattacharya.
In this paper, a rotating probe in vinyl chloride
pipe was tested, and a new inspection robot system for
drain pipe was developed. They developed a drain pipe
inspection robot that can be controlled by wireless radio
communication in the inside pipe and can also transmit
image information of the inside of the pipe in real time.
They used a 19m cleaned ceramic pipe with a diameter of
25cm and 30cm is shown in Fig.1.

Keywords- Autonomous mobile robot, In-pipe
inspection.
I. INTRODUCTION
The inspection of pipes may be relevant for improving
security and efficiency in industrial plants. These specific
operations as inspection, maintenance, cleaning etc. are
expensive, thus the application of the robots appears to be
one of the most attractive solutions. The pipelines are the
major tools for the transportation of drinkable water,
effluent water, fuel oils and gas. A lot of troubles caused by
piping networks aging, corrosion, cracks, and mechanical
damages are possible. So, continuous activities for
inspection, maintenance and repair are strongly
demanded.
Recently many plants became old, so steel pipes,
ceramic pipes, concrete pipes and plastic pipes used for
transportation of water and gas also became old. And,
these pipes become cracked because of deterioration and
corrosion. Thus inspection of pipes is important for
improving security and efficiency in industrial plants. It
include inspection, maintenance, cleaning etc. which are
expensive, thus the application of the robots appears to be
one of the most attractive solutions. Pipelines which are
tools for transporting oils, gases and other fluids such as
chemicals, have been employed as major utilities in a
number of countries for long time. Many robots to inspect
these pipes were developed in the past, but they had a
heavy power supply and a signal wire. The moving ability
is probably the greatest problem to deal with.
© 2015, IRJET.NET- All Rights Reserved

Fig.1. Wireless communication property measurement in
the ceramic pipe
This experiment inspected transmission loss in
ceramic pipes using previously tested robot and also
inspected transmission loss in ground and space. And we
clarified the relational equation between a pipe's diameter
and the possible radio transmission distance in an
earthenware pipe, as shown in Fig.2.

Fig.2. Transmission property
From these results, they developed a drain pipe
inspection robot equipped with practical wireless radio
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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | June-2015
www.irjet.net

e-ISSN: 2395-0056
p-ISSN: 2395-0072

communication system. The robot was developed based on
drain pipe inspection robot 'Mogurinko250'.

Fig.3. Inspection robot
This experiment used a resting robot with a rotating
probe in a clean vinyl chloride pipe with a 25cm diameter.
Voltage change was measured in free rotation, and when
the probe touched defects with heights and width of 5mm,
3mm and 1mm. In this result, a probe could measure the
defect of 5mm, 3mm and 1mm in the vinyl pipe. When a
probe touched the defect, voltage showed a substantial
decline.
[2] E Navin Prasad, M Kannan, Azarudeen and N
Karuppasamy.
A very important design goal of the robotic
systems is the adaptability to the inner diameters of the
pipes. So, a new design is proposed for inspecting pipelines.
The major advantage is that it could be used in case of pipe
diameter variation with the simple mechanism. We
developed a pipe inspection robot that can be applied to
140- 180mm pipeline. The kinematics of mechanism and
actuator sizing of this robot have been investigated. A real
prototype was developed to test the feasibility of this robot
for inspection of in-house pipelines. In the proposed
mechanism the problem is solved by a spring actuation and
increasing the flexibility of the mechanism. The propulsion
of the robot has been successfully conducted using only
three motors, a radical simplification over existing efforts.
The robot was designed to be able to traverse horizontal
and vertical pipes.

© 2015, IRJET.NET- All Rights Reserved

Fig 4: Pipe Inspection Robot
The mechanism used is a four bar mechanism
consisting of three revolute joints and one prismatic joint.

Fig 5: Mechanism of Pipe Inspection Robot
[3] Atul Gargade, Dhanraj Tambuskar, Gajanan Thokal.
In this paper an in-pipe inspection robot has
designed that can deal with many kinds of pipes with
various diameters (140mm-200mm.) such as plastic pipes
or metallic pipes which are in horizontal or vertical
manner only for 750 mm distance.
The pipe inspection robot is composed of body,
fore leg system, rear leg system and springs. Three legs of
each leg system are arranged at an angle of 120 degrees to
each other to move inside various pipe diameters. By using
spring it is able to move freely inside pipes of different
diameters. A CCD camera is installed on front part of the
fore leg system to do visual inspection of pipe.

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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | June-2015
www.irjet.net

e-ISSN: 2395-0056
p-ISSN: 2395-0072

This robot goes inside the pipe and detect leakage area and
then nozzle is rotated to the correct circumferential
position and then the servo will spray the adhesive on the
affected area. The nozzle is able to swing so that the spray
can cover the hole of the detected leakage and its
surrounding area. This robot carries instant leak sealer
which can repair a small leakage hole within 3 minutes.

[5] O. Tătar, D. Mândru, I. Ardelean,
Fig 6. Pipe inspection robot
Static stress analysis of robot assembly is done in
Ansys and analysis results are shown in following figure.

In this paper two wheeled-type in-pipe minirobots
are proposed. Thus, the studied minirobots are
characterized by an adaptable structure, based on linkage
mechanisms. The prototypes were designed for inspection
of pipes with variable diameters within 140 and 200 mm.

Fig7. Stress analysis of robot assembly
[4] Dana Al-Matter,
In this project, Dana Al-Matter has designed a robot
that can repair leakages in the pipe network. Such a robot
can avoid risk while repairing leakages in pipes. The
swinging nozzle feature makes it possible to cover the
entire area of the leak. Moreover, the robot has an
advanced mobility feature where it can move in any type of
pipe network and also the robot itself can be improved to
be smaller in size to tackle small pipe diameters.

Fig 8: Pipe Leakage Repairing Robot

© 2015, IRJET.NET- All Rights Reserved

Fig. 9 In-pipe inspection robots with adaptable
structure.
Main advantage of this type of robot is adaptable
structure. The minirobot is powered through wires and it is
controlled with the aid of a microcontroller ATMEL
Atmega8535. A very important design advantage is the
adaptability of the in-pipe robots to the inner diameters of
the pipes.

Table 1. Results of applying the KG criterion to the
kinematically equivalent ring.
Number of links
5
(excluding ground link)
Total DOF
5x6 = 30 DOF
Number of 1 DOF joints
4
Number of 2 DOF joints
1
Number of 3 DOF joints
1
Total Constraints
4 x 5 + 4 + 3 = 27
Total DOF
30 – 27 = 3 DOF
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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
Volume: 02 Issue: 03 | June-2015
www.irjet.net

In order to determine the strength of the actuators
required to hold the robot against the pipe wall, a
simulation was run to estimate the magnitude of the forces
exerted on the robot due to the fluid flow inside a pipe. The
simulation was run in ANSYS 13 and the forces exerted on
all three axes were calculated. Fig. 13 shows the simulation
setup, and Table 7 contains a summary of the results.

e-ISSN: 2395-0056
p-ISSN: 2395-0072

to their shape and area inside the pipe. Only one robot was
designed to operate in live pipes, but was not designed to
operate indefinitely and struggled to navigate vertical
pipes. It was clear from the review that research into
robots operating in live pipes is an important topic and
novel solutions are needed.

REFERENCES

Fig. 13. Screenshot showing the direction of fluid flow and
the axis system used in the simulation.
Table 2. Simulated forces exerted on the robot.
Axis
X
Y
Z

Force (N)
0.04371N
0.02104N
-14.97N

As is expected, the majority of the force is exerted on
the robot in the direction of the fluid flow. As well as the
fluid force, the weight of the robot is also significant. An
analysis of the forces on each set of actuators is done as
below.

[1] Kentarou Nishijima, Yixiang.Sun, rupeshkumar Srivastava,
Harutoshi Ogai and Bishakh Bhattacharya, “Advanced pipe
inspection robot using rotating probe,” The Fifteenth International
Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics 2010.
[2] E Navin Prasad, M Kannan, Azarudeen and N Karuppasamy (2012),
“DEFECT IDENTIFICATION IN PIPE LINES USING PIPE INSPECTION
ROBOT”, IJMERR, Vol. 1, No. 2, July2012.
[3] Atul Gargade, Dhanraj Tambuskar, Gajanan Thokal“Modelling and
Analysis of Pipe Inspection Robot”, IJETAE Volume 3, Issue 5, May
2013.
[4] Dana Al-Matter, “Pipe Leakage Repairing Robot”, Kuwait-MIT
Center for Natural Resources and the Environment August 28, 2013.
[5] O. Tătar, D. Mândru, I. Ardelean, “Development of mobile
minirobots for in pipe inspection tasks”, ISSN 1392 - 1207.
MECHANIKA. 2007. Nr.6(68)
[6] Dimitris M. Chatzigeorgiou, “DESIGN AND EVALUATION AN INPIPE LEAK DETECTION SENSING TECHNIQUE BASED ON FORCE
TRANSDUCTION,” in International Mechanical Engineering
Congress & Expostion, Houston, TX, USA, 2012, IMECE2012-87493.
[7] Roh, S.G., Ryew, S.M., Choi, H.R. Development of Differentially
driven in-pipe inspection robot for underground gas pipelines.Proc. Of Int. Symposium on Robotic, 2001, p.165-170.
[8] Amr Bekhit, Abbas Dehghani, Robert Richardson, “Kinematic
Analysis and Locomotion Strategy of a Pipe Inspection Robot
Concept for Operation in Active Pipelines” International Journal of
Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics Volume 1, Issue 1, Year
2012 Journal ISSN: 1929 – 2724.

BIOGRAPHIES

Pramar P.Bakane, Asst. Prof.
Datta Meghe Institute of
Engineering, Technology &
Research, Sawangi (M), Wardha.
(INDIA)
Fig. 14. Free body diagram showing how the force pressing the support
disc against the pipe wall.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
A review of existing pipe inspection robots showed
that robots capable of navigating a pipe network have been
developed using many different locomotion types.
However, nearly all the robots were designed for operation
in empty pipes and so did not have to deal with restrictions
© 2015, IRJET.NET- All Rights Reserved

Prashant Mujbaile,
Assistant Professor Department
of Mechanical Engineering, Shree
Vyankatesh Polytechnic,
WARDHA (INDIA)

Page 1868

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