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Determination of thickness of wax deposition in oil pipelines using gamma-ray transmission method

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Abstract

Wax deposition in pipelines is a crucial problem in the oil industry. An approach that combines the gamma-ray transmission method with scanning technology is proposed to detect the thickness of wax deposition. The performance of the method is validated through simulations with MCNP code. An experiment is also carried out with a 300 mCi 137Cs source and a LaBr3 detector. A good correspondence is observed between the simulation and experimental results. The results indicate that the approach is efficient for detecting the thickness of wax deposition in oil pipelines.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Jiangsu Institute of Metrology for providing the gamma-ray source.

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Correspondence to Da-Qian Hei.

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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11505097 and 11775113), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and the Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX17_0286).

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Cheng, C., Jia, WB., Hei, DQ. et al. Determination of thickness of wax deposition in oil pipelines using gamma-ray transmission method. NUCL SCI TECH 29, 109 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-018-0447-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-018-0447-4

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