When components leak, sizing them up for repairs can be extremely difficult. This isn’t just due to distance and locale—many are underground or underwater—but also safety issues. If components carry hazardous substances, manual measurement is inherently riskier than noncontact alternatives. Visibility can also be an issue, with steam or process plumes blocking faulty pipes from view.

Likewise, in leak repair, time is of the essence. Bringing tapes, gauges, and calipers out to the site may be a time-tested means of measuring pipeline geometry, but it’s time-consuming, difficult to master, and occasionally error-prone. With complex jobs, these problems are only exacerbated. This leads many firms to revisit the technology behind their leak repair services.

Even in a hard-to-reach area, an ISS engineer can digitize pipe work using Artec Leo. Image courtesy of ISS.

Fixing leaks in the world’s vast refinery and petrochemical network is no mean feat. Often operating in remote or hard-to-reach locations, refineries and petrochemical plants rely on millions of kilometers of piping and piping components every day.

One such company, Industrial Specialty Services (ISS), is outrunning its competition by adopting Artec Leo 3D scanning. At first, the U.S. engineering solutions provider explored several options. After careful consideration, the team selected Artec Leo for its speed, flexibility, and ease of use. Since then, ISS hasn’t looked back—its services are now faster and more efficient than ever before.

Adopting Leo for complex tasks

Having recognized the need to digitize its measurement process, ISS initially engaged with external firms offering handheld 3D scanning services. However, these providers lacked familiarity with the unique demands of the leak repair industry. As a result, scans often missed the mark, capturing irrelevant features or using the incorrect resolution.

According to Chris Larsen, ISS VP of engineering, that’s why the firm reentered the market looking for a scanner that “was going to hit that sweet spot in terms of portability and usability—and wasn’t going to break the bank.” At this point, ISS met with Artec Gold-certified reseller CADTech USA, which introduced the ISS team to the wireless Artec Leo, a point-and-shoot device that’s incredibly easy to use.

In certain cases where only lengths and diameters are required, its engineers can still use manual techniques. But capturing highly complex, irregular, twisted, and offset geometries and pipe work with multiple landing points is far trickier. This is where Leo excels, enabling technicians to capture these with the required level of accuracy, and faster than other technologies allow.

ISS composite/leak repair service line manager Sean Peters says, “Once we have the scan, we can complete a conventional measure up, compare the information from the two measurements, and proceed to manufacturing with confidence. This reduces rework, accelerates the engineering process, and helps us deliver components that fit right the first time. Leo reduces the time we spend in the field. What used to take hours with manual measurement tools—along with multiple site visits for verification—can now be captured in one visit.”

3D-scanned pipeline geometry, edited in Artec Studio. Image courtesy of ISS

Going from scan to enclosure

In many applications, the ISS team can process scans in just one hour before sending the resulting mesh to SOLIDWORKS for reverse engineering. Noisier environments require more scan cleanup, but Artec Studio makes accomplishing this quick and easy.

Inside Artec Studio, users can either manually process data—using smart base removal and auto-alignment to accelerate each step—or activate Autopilot. For ISS, complex tasks necessitate manually deleting excess data. Ultimately, it’s also necessary to reduce poly count; otherwise files will become too large to handle, even for the likes of SOLIDWORKS.

After mesh refinement, Artec Studio allows for export in a single click, so data can be used to ensure that enclosures designed elsewhere are fit for purpose. Today, these devices are employed by customers dealing with leaks, and others preemptively maintaining leak-prone areas—both of whom are now able to prevent potential shutdowns.

“We can usually bolt enclosures together around components and inject a sealant that stops the leak,” says Larsen. “That way, there’s no safety or environmental impact, and they don’t have to shut down. The other use case is when a customer sees piping is thinning, eroding, or corroding to where it appears they may soon have a problem. They can preemptively install an enclosure so they don’t run any risks.”

Expanding into onsite machining

The ISS customer base primarily comprises refineries and petrochemical plants in the Gulf, but it now has locations across the United States, where it offers industrial specialty services 24/7, 365 days per year.

Despite the fact it’s still figuring out how to get the most of 3D scanning, the company is already making lead time and efficiency gains. As technicians and engineers get more comfortable with the technology, it’s anticipated that further opportunities will emerge. For instance, ISS is working on improving workflow consistency and weighing up Leo’s potential in other onsite applications.

“Once our workflow is fully optimized, I see potential to expand 3D scanning into other areas of the business—especially in our onsite field machining services,” says Peters. “Being able to quickly capture precise geometries in the field would make it a lot easier to plan, build fixtures, and execute machining jobs with better accuracy. It could also help with verifying dimensions before and after machining, and improving quality control.”

As digital manufacturing continues to take hold in industrial settings, use cases like ISS’s will only become more common. By adopting high-end 3D scanning earlier than oil and gas competitors, the firm has secured its place at the fore of the industry—and the results speak for themselves. ISS now delivers tailored solutions to customers faster than ever, accelerating the repair of complex piping components where time and precision are critical.