Development of the Caliper System for a Geometry PIG Based on Magnetic Field Analysis

This paper introduces the development of the caliper system for a geometry PIG (Pipeline Inspection Gauge). The objective of the caliper system is to detect and measure dents, wrinkles, and ovalities affect the pipe structural integrity. The developed caliper system consists of a finger arm, an anisotropic permanent magnet, a back yoke, pins, pinholes and a linear hall effect sensor. The angle displacement of the finger arm is measured by the change of the magnetic field in sensing module. Therefore the sensitivity of the caliper system mainly depends on the magnitude of the magnetic field inside the sensing module. In this research, the ring shaped anisotropic permanent magnet and linear hall effect sensors were used to produce and measure the magnetic field. The structure of the permanent magnet, the back yoke and pinhole positions were optimized that the magnitude of the magnetic field range between a high of 0.1020 Tesla and a low of zero by using three dimensional nonlinear finite element methods. A simulator was fabricated to prove the effectiveness of the developed caliper system and the computational scheme using the finite element method. The experimental results show that the developed caliper system is quite efficient for the geometry PIG with good performance.