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Condition Based Maintenance

Reduce maintenance costs using Aginova's XCorr sensors

The industrial sector and the Military have large high value assets and significant physical infrastructures. As these critical assets and infrastructures are aging their upkeep and maintenance is becoming expensive. US Department of Defense and industrial companies such as those in the Oil and gas sector are therefore pushing "Condition Based Maintenance" (CBM) as the approach to address these problems. Our products and solutions make CBM possible.

Why Sentinel Products?

Corrosion, in one form or another, can cause the asset or the infrastructure to deteriorate, shortening their useful lives. GAO Report No. 03-753 indicates that corrosion related repairs and replacements drives up costs and takes critical systems out of action. Failure of utility pipelines can delay or otherwise impact the military mission, and create life safety hazards for soldiers and their families. In addition, failure to take corrective action before a critical infrastructure component has become irreparably damaged and/or environmental contamination has occurred violates the principles of sustainability. Early detection of corrosion and its severity can help control corrosion initiated failures and help in preventive maintenance thereby improving equipment readiness.

Aginova has significant experience and expertise in working with the Military and the oil and gas pipeline industry. The company has been developing corrosion sensors and data analysis tools for both commercial and Department of Defense (DoD) clients. The company provides systems capable of autonomously and accurately measuring corrosion, coating degradation, or corrosivity and provide useful information to maintainers without replacing a costly inspector with a data analysis specialist. Aginova's approach is the autonomous measurement of corrosion and the transmission of measured data for data analysis for prognostication.

Corrosion, in one form or another, can cause military assets to deteriorate, shortening their useful lives. GAO Report No. 03-753 indicates that corrosion related repairs and replacements drives up costs and takes critical systems out of action, reducing mission readiness.

Early detection of corrosion and its severity can help control corrosion initiated failures and help in preventive maintenance thereby improving equipment readiness.

Although periodic inspection and preventive maintenance are required to minimize cost of corrosion, these routine inspections are visual in nature and hence are subjective and limited to exposed areas. Furthermore, inspections of hidden components significantly drives maintenance costs up because of the need to disassemble parts. If it were possible to develop a low cost corrosion sensor that would be able to remotely monitor the onset of corrosion and its severity in inaccessible areas, there would be a significant impact in reducing the cost of corrosion and also improving readiness.

As the industrial and civic infrastructure is aging, an increasing cost for the upkeep of the assets is corrosion maintenance. Various studies have estimated the cost of corrosion to be significant. As an example, the corrosion-related cost to the gas transmission pipeline industry is approximately $5.4 to $8.6 billion annually.

Corrosion is a continuous process that accelerates depending on the environment conditions. Therefore, corrosion maintenance requires periodic monitoring of the assets and the evaluation of the state of the metal for preventive actions.

Corrosion has to be monitored both inside and outside the pipeline. Typically, the outside monitoring is less complex than inside pipelines. However, corrosion monitoring on the outside of a pipe is a significant challenge when insulation coatings are present as in a refinery.

There is currently no compelling motivation for external corrosion control in the water utility industry. pipeline A water utility can, if it so chooses, do nothing to control corrosion, and accept the consequences. Currently the major motivating factors in the water utility industry are to provide uninterrupted water service with a high quality product, preservation of assets, reduction of operating costs (leaks), minimization of possible sources of contamination to the water supply, and pride of ownership.

Corrosion leaks, just like any other pipeline "break", can result in contamination of the water supply. Reducing corrosion leaks reduces the potential for negatively affecting water quality and the possible public safety and. health effect issues associated with any contamination of the water supply.