SUSTAINABILITY
CORROSIONRADAR CorrosionRADAR is on a mission to solve a £3.5bn conundrum. The company has developed a technology to deal with corrosion in large pieces of infrastructure, such as pipelines. “Corrosion costs the oil and gas industry alone £3.5bn a year,” explains CEO Chiraz Ennaceur. “It’s the biggest cause of mechanical failure in the world, and we’re using technology to transform the way people manage the problem.” The company’s approach involves deploying a network of distributed sensors that can detect corrosion and moisture on any type of asset and
cost and lowers risk for everyone involved,” Chiraz explains. CorrosionRADAR’s technology was developed by chief technology officer, Dr Prafull Sharma at Cranfield University, and it now has offices at Cranfield and in Cambridge. Chiraz co-founded the business in 2017 with Dr Sharma and another Cranfield graduate, chief operating officer, Dr Mehrdad Silatani, who worked for TWI at Granta Park, developing different types of technology for inspecting large pieces of infrastructure. “From my background in industry, I know what a massive problem CUI is. Companies are always looking for new ways to deal with it,” Chiraz says. “We have already established a healthy pipeline of potential customers who want to use this new technology for corrosion monitoring. We think the offshore wind industry will be our second target market. Any area where corrosion exists but is difficult to access is where we’re looking to make a difference.” corrosionradar.com
transmit this information wirelessly back to the owner using industrial Internet-of-Things technology. The system also includes a machine learning element, which analyses data from the sensors to predict when maintenance might be needed. Chiraz explains the firm is initially focusing its technology on hidden corrosion, such as corrosion under insulation (CUI). CorrosionRADAR’s mission is to support industry that’s moving from reactive to predictive corrosion management, using its cutting-edge systems. “The current method for detecting this kind of corrosion is a visual inspection,” she says. “The issue is that it’s hard to pinpoint where the corrosion is – a lot of these assets are difficult to access, so it’s a hidden problem. “The inspections only take place once every few years and they are very labour-intensive and often very risky for the people carrying them out, because they are having to go into hazardous environments. It’s inefficient from any angle, and our system lowers
ABOVE CorrosionRADAR tackles hidden corrosion of infrastructure with a network of sensors, replacing labour-intensive and risky inspections
Corrosion is the biggest cause of mechanical failure in the world, and we're using technology to transform the way people manage the problem"
ISSUE 02 26
cambridgecatalyst.co.uk
Powered by FlippingBook