Uncompromised Reliability and Cost Effective Corrosion under Insulation (CUI) Detection by Real-time Monitoring and Embedded IoT Device

Corrosion under Insulation (CUI) is critical to ageing facilities. Timely corrective action is essential for ensuring asset integrity at optimum cost. Rather than performing costly activities of insulation removal and direct inspection, most asset owners seek for advanced monitoring techniques for leaning the cost without compromising the integrity. CUI detection sensor is then innovated to provide a cost-effective approach in CUI management. The detection is designed to work neither too early as compared to a moisture detector, nor too late as compared to the wire detector. With this design principle, timely alert can be provided at cost significantly lowered than typical continuous thickness monitoring device. Robust design to withstand industrial environment is aimed for its lifetime more than 10 years. The sensor can be installed with IoT device enabling real time monitoring and corrective action management on a single platform. In this paper, the detectability & durability test in laboratory is described as well as the case study from the field is presented revealing how CUI sensor can lower asset life cycle cost. Additionally, CUI monitoring technologies are reviewed for future improvement.