Sirris managed the Corrosion Lab project, where our sensors were used to monitor the moisture content on two identically insulated and heated pipes during alternating wet and dry periods. During the wet phase, 5ml of water was injected hourly: fresh water in one pipe and saltwater in the other. Both sensors clearly visualized the peak values when water was injected as well as the evolution of decreasing values as conditions changed from wet to dry. Further evaluations are being made on other set-ups, such as bends and death lags; we look forward to reporting those results in due course.
The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC, in the UK), funded the project within which we developed our ATEX sensor and has supported us in further research: We constructed an outdoor test bench equipped with four different types of insulation for new validation tests. Each of the four pipe segments was about six meters in length and was monitored by a dedicated sensor installed on that segment. The tests indicated that during rain showers the sensors were able to detect moisture ingress in each type of insulation. We would expect moisture behavior to vary, depending on the composition of the insulation (e.g., closed cell or open structure); the welcome result of this project is that the data analytics recognized these different signatures.
