Progress of Active Thermometry Method in Submarine Pipeline Scour Monitoring

Scour is one of the most important problems lead to submarine pipeline failure. In this paper, several scour monitoring techniques based on active thermometry method was introduced. Firstly, DS18B20 digital temperature sensor was used to monitor the surface heat change pattern in the heating process in different media like sand and water. The test results validated the feasibility of the active thermometry method. Then, the submarine pipeline scour monitoring system based on Brillouin distributed optical fiber sensing technique was developed. Due to the high cost of monitoring system of distributed Brillouin fiber optical sensing technology. In order to reduce costs, common armed fiber optic cable was used as both heating and sensing unit, and Raman sensing with relatively lower cost was utilized for distributed temperature sensing for scour monitoring. Laboratory test results shown there is good potential of active thermometry method for scour monitoring in practical field.