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  • ACRS 1990


    Poster Session Q
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    The application of airborne thermal infrared Remote Sensing to the detection
    petroleum pipes

    Zhou Yanru, Wang Xiaohong
    Geological Remote Sensing Center,
    Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources
    The People's Republic of China


    Abstract
    The physical basis of petroleum pipes detection with thermal infrared remote sensing was demonstrated in this paper. The presupposition of pipe detection was discussed according to the field temperature test data and the possible interference was analyzed too. The selections of optimum imaging conditions were discussed from the selection of maging season and time, flight altitude and temperature range. According to the local condition, the first half nights in the middle ten days of December were selected as imaging time and it was successfully. After image processing and interpretation, the interpretation keys were sep up, and the pipe in-corrected. The application results are excellent.

    Intoduction
    At the beginning of several major oilfields development in China, because of time limitation, there were no design and construction maps for some areas. The underground distribution of pipe nets is not known is some area. All this has held up the oilfield development and some project reforms. So, it is badly in need to make clear the distribution of underground pipe nets for many oilfields, to prevent oil and gas leakage, harming the production and human safety and other bad results from pipe break caused by unsuitable construetion. In the middle ten days of December 1989, in Panjin area of Liaohe oilfield, we carried out the experimental research of petroleum pipe detection with the method of airborne thermal infrared remote sensing with DS-1230 quantitative double-channel infrared scanner and DS-1268 multispectral scanner installed in Twin-otter aircraft, and got gratifying achievements.

    The experimental area is locate din the lower reaches of Liaohe River, near the sea inlet and is a part of Liaohe flood plain. Suangtaizi River comes across the area. Most of the area is rice field but the rice reaped, with criss-cross network of irrigation channels. There are marshlands at the south side and north side of the experimental area and along the riverbanks.

    The oil-bearing structure in the oilfield is like a spindle in NNE direction. The oil-drilling platforms; are distributed densely around the structure. A lot of oil, gas and water pipes interweave like a network: All underground pipes produce a great impact to the construction of buildings, road, railway and channels, as well as geophysical prospecting for oil and drilling. Any careless would cause the break of oil, and water pipes. The leakage, rising and running of oil gas and water can make the production and construction to be stopped, even more serious damages.

    The physical basis and presupposition
    All substances on the earth with the absolute temperature above zero (-273°C) can radiate infrared energy; the expression of energy radiation is following [1]:

    Fr=edT4kin..............(1)
    Fr:physical radiated enery, w/cm2
    e:object radiant emittance
    d:object radiant constant 5.67x10-7
    Tkin: object surface temperature

    It is known from expression (1) that the object-radiated energy depends mainly on the object surface temperature and its radient emittance. For the detection of oil, gas and water pipes, the main point is to use the temperature anomaly produced by the thermal conduction of the pipes temperature on the surface of soil. So, the main consideration here is the temperature. The soil surface with the background of farm field does not have great influence on the change of object radiant emittance.

    The airborne thermal infrared scanner can do area scanning and can get the ground thermal images with very high resolution of temperature, and can tell the little difference between 0.2-0.5°C. As long as the temperature difference or radiant emittance difference exists among the different objects, the infrared detector can find them. Then the different objects can be distinguished.

    The surface temperature anomelies are the physical presupposition for the detection of under ground pipes. The temperature anomalies appear in two ways: (a) the thermal conduction of thermal source objects across the soil covers; (b) after the pipes were buried under the ground the soil texture has changed , the soil moisture content changed also. All these changed will cause temperature anomalies.

    The test data analysis of radiant temperature
    On the basis of discussing the physical presupposition, in the middle ten days of December of the same year, the existence of the physical presupposition was proved by the ground radiant temperature measurement two days before the flight. The measurement results are: the surface temperature of the uncovered petroleum pipes reached about 40°C~50°C at day and night, (the local temperature - 3°C~-5°C at day time, the ground surface temperature -12°C~- 7.5°C). The surface temperature anomalies caused by underground petroleum pipes are usually -7.5°C~-8.5°C at night, and are 2°C~-4°C higher than the background temperature. (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2).

    The temperature for sewage conduits and natural gas pipes mainly dependents on the environmental temperature and as same as ground temperature. No temperature anomalies appeared on the ground temperature testing results.

    Considering the flight imaging time, the temperature test was carried out at the first half night for -different ground objects and at different time. The ground radiant temperature curves comparing with different ground objects at 21 and 22 o'clock of night are shown in Fig. 2)


    Fig.1 The radiant temperatur anomaly profile of petroleum pipes
    21:00,    December 14, 1989.

    Fig. 2 The ground radiant temperature curves comparison for different object
    1. petroleum pipe;    2-ice surface;
    3. asphalt road;    4-concrete road;
    5. sand road;     6- vegetable field;
    7- bare field     8- reeded land.
    21:00-22:00,    December 14, 1989

    It can be seen from the urves: (a) The tow temperature curves at 21 and 22 o] clock fitted very well, that means the ground temperature at this period has little change and tends to be stable. (b) The temperature of background objects such as bare field, vegetable field, reeded land and sand and soil road is relatively low; The surface temperature of concreate road and as phalt road is relatively high; The temperature on ice surface is highest among them; The ground temperature anomalies on the top of petroleum pipes are about 2~4° higher than the temperature of the background objects. (c) The radiant temperature of asphalt road, concrete road and the cannel full of water (ice surface) is close to that of the pipe anomaly. So, all that will be the main interference factors in the image interpretation of petroleum pipes.

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