Underwater inspection

A new inspection vehicle to monitor the condition of subsea pipelines will be designed and developed by a Flinders University engineering team to meet the growing needs of the offshore petroleum sector.

With integrated sonar and video sensing, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) will not only assess the integrity of pipelines that lie up to 2.5km below sea level but will also evaluate the changing conditions of the sea-floor.

Joint team leader, Associate Prof Karl Sammut from the Flinders School of Informatics and Engineering, said a number of challenges faced the petroleum sector as oil and gas resources were increasingly developed a long way from shore.

'At present more than 80 per cent of Australia’s gas resources exist in remote areas that can lie up to 300km offshore and extra-long pipelines will be required to transport the oil and gas from the deep sea environment safely back to shore,’ Prof Sammut said.