Patent ID: 9621071
Date: 2017-04-11
CPC Classifications: G01N,H02M

Claim:
1. A high powered current generator for electromagnetic inspection of hydrocarbon pipelines, wherein a stabilized alternating current of rectangular waveform is used for evaluating the condition of a coating of the pipeline, the generator comprising: 1) a programmable voltage regulator module, to set a value of a regulated voltage from about 10 to 130 VDC, based on a regulated electrical current of operation and an electrical impedance of a pipeline according to the equation V=I×Z, where V is the voltage, I is the current and Z is the impedance; 2) an electrical ground reference decoupling module, for isolating a ground supply voltage from VAC input with respect to an output voltage of the generator; 3) an H Bridge inverter module, which allows alternating current of the generator output at a frequency of about 0.1 Hz to 1 KHz; 4) a feedback module that acquires and performs analog to digital sample conversion of voltage and electrical current from a programmable voltage regulator module output and from the H-bridge inverter module output supplying digital feedback signals to the control and processing for setting the output of the programmable voltage regulator module and regulating current output of the generator; 5) and a control and processing module that contains a microcontroller with firmware for regulating output electrical current, self-protection to over-power generator output, and generation of frequencies of operation.