An automated nondestructive testing system for the surface of pressure pipeline welds

Abstract Pressure pipelines are widely used in hydropower generation, oil and gas transmission, and other fields. After years of operation, a pressure pipeline needs regular maintenance to ensure its safety. At present, manual detection methods are unable to meet this demand. An automatic pressure pipeline detection technology is urgently needed to achieve improved efficiency and accuracy. On the basis of the above requirements, a wall‐climbing robot is designed for automatic pressure pipe inspection and maintenance tasks. Moreover, rapid nondestructive testing of welds on the inner surface of pressure pipelines was performed, and a weld tracking function was developed for wall‐climbing robots. We propose an algorithm framework for weld recognition and centerline extraction by combining computer vision technology with traditional image processing technology using visual images. The experimental verification of the wall‐climbing robot designed in this paper and the algorithm framework for weld recognition and centerline extraction were performed based on actual pressure pipelines. The results show that the algorithm framework developed based on the wall‐climbing robot equipped with an industrial camera for pressure pipeline weld detection can achieve greatly improved efficiency, and the actual weld identification accuracy can exceed 90%, which is very meaningful for practical applications.