Patent ID: 8296083

Claim:
A vibratory pipeline diagnostic system ( 100 ), characterized by: at least one vibration generator ( 104 ) adapted to be affixed to a pipeline; at least one vibration sensor ( 107 ) adapted to be affixed to the pipeline; and a processing device ( 111 ) in communication with the at least one vibration generator ( 104 ) and the at least one vibration sensor ( 107 ), with the processing device ( 111 ) being configured to vibrate a portion of the pipeline using the at least one vibration generator ( 104 ), receive a vibrational response to the vibration from the at least one vibration sensor ( 107 ), compare the vibrational response to one or more previous vibrational responses of the pipeline, and indicate a fault condition if the vibrational response differs from the one or more previous vibrational responses by more than a predetermined tolerance.