The extensive adoption of plastic pipelines is a growing phenomenon in different fields of the industry, with applications that extend from municipal water and sewer systems to the water lines in nuclear reactors. The large-scale adoption is motivated by the unique features of plastics like corrosion and chemical resistance, low cost, and design flexibility. While the dielectric nature of plastic pipelines provides unique design capabilities, it also introduces new challenges for the operators when it comes to inspecting and ensuring the integrity of these pipelines’ networks. In this study, a multi-modal approach is adopted to address the threats affecting the safety of small diameter plastic pipelines and explore possible inspection solutions for emerging materials like composites. Structured light endoscopes with RGB-D inspection capability were developed for the inspection of surface defects in small diameter pipelines with novelties a) Design and miniaturization of RGB-D structured light sensor with electronic stabilization, b) Development of an algorithm to automatically calibrate the sensor when placed in a cylindrical environment, c) Design of a single shot phase measurement SL sensor that employs the sensor movement to improve the 3D reconstruction, and d) Design a stereoscopic SL sensor for 360-degree inspection. EM-based inspection was adopted to inspect subsurface defects and classify materials around the inspected pipelines. An investigative study was performed to test the probability of detecting cold fusion in butt fusion joints by using emerging NDE techniques, and a coplanar capacitive sensor was designed for the detection of legacy crossbores in gas pipelines. Finally, a thermoacoustic imaging system was developed in this study with potential applications for the inspection of composites and medical imaging. The novelties of this work can be summarized as follows: a) Development of a simulation model to study the thermoacoustic waves generation and the effect of multiple experimental parameters on the performance of thermoacoustic imaging systems, b) Improving the signal to noise ratio of pulsed TAI imaging systems by adoption non-coherent pulse compression. In summary, this study presents a multi-modal approach for the inspection of pipeline networks by adopting optical RGB-D imaging sensors for surface inspection, EM-based sensors for subsurface inspection and classification of objects outside the pipe, and finally, a hybrid imaging method with potential applications in medical imaging and inspection of composites.
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