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Pipelines usually transport hydrocarbons in the oil and gas industry. Small amounts of salt water may be present, which can cause corrosion from the inside to outside. Severe corrosion may produce through holes in the pipe wall. External protective layers of fiber reinforced plastics has been applied to postpone the need to stop production to perform a definitive repair, but do not stop the internal corrosion. It is very important to monitor the dimensions of through holes hidden by the protective layers of composite materials, which cannot exceed critical size and compromise pipe safety. Classical methods, such as ultrasound, do not give very reliable answers when composite materials and steel are combined. There is a great demand for a reliable and practical in field non-destructive inspection method. This work brings a hybrid and reliable solution, which combines a new configuration of a portable one-shot shearography system with finite element methods, resulting in a portable and easy to apply solution. The paper describes the principle of the portable one-shot shearography system that is able of simultaneously measuring in three shearing directions[1]. Considerations and modeling of finite element to determine the response of the composite material to the variation of the internal pressure of the duct are discussed. The report details how the experimental data and numerical model results are combined through an iterative process to determine the diameter of the hidden hole. Instead of integrating the experimental results of shearography, the authors differentiate the results of finite element in the same directions as the one-shot shearography system does simultaneously. The minimum of the square error results in an estimation of the hidden hole diameter. Experiments were performed with 150 mm diameter tubes with 20 to 50 mm diameter holes hidden by 6 to 24 mm thick glass fiber reinforced plastic protective layers. Smaller thickness and bigger diameters led to better results. Mean deviations of the order of 10% were found for the whole set of tests. Although the authors consider it is possible to improve the results, deviations of the order of up to 10% are very acceptable results and represent a significant improvement over the classic methods used today. The robustness of the optical system, the ease of use of the algorithm and the level of uncertainty already achieved make the authors believe that the techniques developed here achieve the requirements and will be very useful for the oil and gas industry demands.
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