Inspection of oil and gas pipelines and petrochemical production areas, analysis of the application of drones in the petroleum and petrochemical fields

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Qinhuangdao Yuandao Technology Co., Ltd. was established in June 2013. It is a company mainly engaged in R&D, production and sales in the fields of virtual simulation and unmanned production. Its main customers are universities, chemical companies and port groups across the country. The company currently has one invention patent, one utility model patent, and nine copyrights. It has won first prizes in informatization competitions many times, and has been reported by CCTV Comprehensive Channel, People's Daily and other media. UAV is an unmanned aircraft, which is an unmanned aerial vehicle that is mainly controlled by radio remote control or its own program. UAVs can rely on their superior performance to cooperate with current advanced remote sensing, image processing, communications, Internet and other technologies to facilitate the application and promotion of petroleum and petrochemical fields. 1. Inspection of oil and gas pipelines and petrochemical production areas Inspection of oil and gas pipelines and petrochemical production areas refers to the relevant safety management departments' regular inspections and inspections of oil and gas transmission pipelines and operating equipment and oil storage facilities in petrochemical production areas within their jurisdiction. The inspection content generally includes damage or corrosion of oil and gas pipelines and ancillary equipment in petrochemical production areas, as well as statistical inspections of whether the service life of pipelines and equipment has expired, so as to ensure the safety of oil and gas transportation and prevent accidents. The raw materials and products involved in the petroleum and petrochemical industry are mostly high-temperature and high-pressure, flammable, explosive and toxic dangerous goods. They are large-scale and have complex equipment. It is very likely that a small accident will cause a major impact or even be catastrophic. Traditional oil and gas pipeline inspection work has mainly adopted the manual inspection method, also known as the one-table system. That is, inspection points are set up along the oil and gas pipelines, and inspection personnel return to the pipeline management office to summarize and compile statistics on all inspection results. With the development of related technologies, pipeline leakage detection systems have been used to monitor whether oil pipelines are leaking in real time, thus reducing the workload of inspection personnel to a certain extent and improving their work efficiency. However, this detection method can only be detected after an accident occurs. In order to prevent it before it happens, it is still necessary to send inspection personnel to conduct on-site inspections. This manual inspection method is greatly limited by factors such as long pipeline distances, wide ranges, and complex environments. With its ability to cross terrain, reach ultra-long distances, and arrive quickly, drones will surely become one of the most efficient means of inspecting oil and gas pipelines and petrochemical production areas in the future. The drone oil and gas pipeline inspection method can be roughly divided into two stages. The first stage is real-time inspection. Inspection personnel send commands to the drone through the ground station or monitoring center to control the drone's flight operations. The flight path is along the pipeline to be inspected. During the flight, the professional aerial photography equipment carried by the drone itself is used to capture real pipeline image data, and the data is transmitted back to the ground station or monitoring center, so that fellow inspectors can observe the real situation of the pipeline in real time. At this stage, pipeline safety hazards can be discovered quickly and promptly. The second stage is to post-process the inspection results, that is, use professional image processing software on the pipeline image data obtained in the first stage to draw a complete set of drone aerial survey maps of oil and gas pipelines for later statistics and analysis. 2. Geomorphological survey along oil and gas pipelines Geomorphological survey along oil and gas pipelines refers to the geological and landform characteristics of various sections along the pipeline before pipeline laying and during pipeline maintenance, analyzing the possibility, causes and diffusion range of adverse geological phenomena, and making necessary suggestions and measures on how to prevent or remediate adverse geological phenomena. It can also determine the degree of corrosion hazards of environmental water and soil along the pipeline to pipeline construction materials. Traditional geomorphological survey methods mainly use manual methods, which require surveyors to conduct on-site inspections and collect local geological samples, water quality samples and other data. This survey method not only has a heavy workload but also has difficult conditions, especially in mountainous areas. Geomorphological surveys of oil and gas pipelines in rivers, swamps, and uninhabited areas, or during ice disasters, floods, earthquakes, landslides, and at night, are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and some survey projects in complex geological environments are difficult to complete using conventional methods. In addition, due to the changing natural and social environment along the pipeline, it is possible that as human economic activities along the pipeline continue to be active, the population density around the human settlements they pass through will increase, the number of roads and buildings will increase, and the coverage of green belts will increase. Pipeline inspections will become increasingly difficult, resulting in increased corrosion and aging of some pipelines without timely investigation and maintenance. As the scale of domestic long-distance oil and gas pipeline construction continues to increase, pipeline construction technology and equipment have become more advanced. However, since the laying of oil and gas pipelines may be located in complex and special terrains, it will inevitably have a series of impacts on construction quality and efficiency. Using modern drone technology, the drone is controlled by a ground station or remote control to cruise and fly the landscape along the pipeline. Aerial photography equipment can be used to easily realize the return of remote spatial information and landform information. In addition, drones can be equipped with material collection devices to quickly bring back the required survey data, which can effectively reduce work intensity and greatly improve the efficiency of landform survey work. 3. Emergency inspections for emergencies Emergency inspections for emergencies mean that when faced with accidents, disasters and other emergencies in oil and gas pipelines and petrochemical production areas, the safety management department can use inspection methods to understand the on-site situation at the first time, and make corresponding emergency measures according to the emergency plan to mitigate the impact of the accident and reduce disaster losses as much as possible. Leakage in oil pipelines poses a great threat to people's lives and property safety. Similarly, another factor affecting the safety of oil pipelines is oil theft accidents. It seems that knowledge has punched a small hole in the oil pipeline, but it has * * Property and pipeline safety pose an extremely serious threat. For oil pipeline leaks, fires and explosions and other emergencies, we currently mainly rely on the inspection, monitoring and management of the safety management departments of oil and gas pipelines or petrochemical production areas, and rely on local fire department units to deal with oil pipeline leaks, fires and explosions and other accidents. They have already formed relatively complete emergency plans, and some scholars have also conducted relevant countermeasure analysis. Under normal circumstances, fire and explosion accidents are often accompanied by open flames, smoke and sound explosions, which are relatively obvious and easy to detect. However, oil leakage accidents in oil pipelines are estimated to be limited by various factors. Therefore, how to give early warning quickly is crucial to reducing accident losses. The various disaster accident scenes faced by emergency firefighting in the petrochemical industry are often changing rapidly. When an accident occurs, the drone can quickly inspect the suspicious area where the accident occurred, and transmit back the image data of the scene in real time through the aerial photography equipment carried by the drone. The emergency inspection department can quickly and accurately respond to the accident handling measures. In the process of handling disaster accidents, drones can also be used to monitor and track disasters in real time, providing timely disaster information to emergency rescue headquarters at all levels. They can also be used as a communication relay between the headquarters and the rescue team to facilitate on-site support and dispatch, thereby minimizing disaster accident losses. In addition, drones can conduct emergency inspections for pipeline oil theft. The locations of pipeline oil theft accidents are highly random and are generally concentrated in sparsely populated areas. Drones are flexible and maneuverable. Multiple drones can be used for coordinated inspections to quickly search for the location of the accident and carry out emergency response to ensure the safety of oil and gas pipeline operations. Conclusion With the successive promulgation of relevant laws and regulations, and with the strong support of modern science and technology, drones will surely occupy a certain place in the petroleum and petrochemical field with their excellent performance. * land. “The application development model of "UAV + Petroleum and Petrochemical" will not only promote the development of the petroleum and petrochemical industry, but will also react on the UAV industry and make progress together. In the future, drones will not be limited to pipeline inspections, landform surveys, and emergency inspections in the field of petroleum and petrochemicals. With the development of high-tech technologies such as the Internet, big data, and cloud computing, the application prospects of drones in the field of petroleum and petrochemicals will be fully reflected.