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EN
Saving 20% on Stack Inspections with the Elios 3
BENEFITS IN A NUTSHELL
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COSTS Using the Elios 3 saw AL Pine reduce the associated costs with the inspection and achieve an overall savings of 20% compared to traditional methods, pleasing the client and demonstrating the value of drone stack inspections. |
SAFETY Drones provide remote access. When using the Elios 3, AL Pine did not require any rope access or scaffolding. This kept inspectors safely on the ground while the drone remotely captured data. |
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SPEED Drone inspections are faster than traditional methods due to requiring less additional equipment and fewer safety protocols than human access. This makes the inspection faster - in this case, the stack inspection was completed in just 2 days. |
DATA The Elios 3 provided critical data about the stack's condition before and after cleaning. The visual stack inspection determine how much buildup had been removed and confirmed the stack was ready for operation again. |
A full-size chimney, or stack, is an immense structure that signals the presence of a major industrial site. With some stacks reaching over 150 meters high, they are crucial elements that are used to discharge waste or built-up gases. They often include special linings or equipment within them to clean the vapors being released to mitigate pollution or the spread of any harmful gases.
Stacks must be carefully inspected and maintained - but that is incredibly difficult when the majority of the structure is far above head height and the reach of man-lifts or cherry pickers. Inspecting stacks usually involves scaffolding or rope access, which brings the inherent dangers of work at height and fall risks to inspectors. If rope access engineers have to ascend, descend, and traverse a stack, they have to complete careful safety assessments, specialized training, and follow lengthy protocols to guarantee their safety. This is important work, but what if there was a way to eliminate the risk altogether? This is where the Elios 3 comes in.
Ready for action: The AL Pine inspection team poses with their Elios 3 drone
Power Plant Stack Inspections
At a charcoal power plant, there is a complex obstacle to overcome when charcoal is burnt: sulfur dioxide. This noxious gas can cause acid rain when released into the environment, causing widespread damage and potentially making people sick. To remove sulfur dioxide from the exhaust gases of coal furnaces, these thermal power plants use scrubbers or line assets with limestone that reacts with the sulfur dioxide to “clean” the gas before it is released. The only problem this poses is that it can cause a build-up of material in the chimney. This build-up must be monitored and cleaned regularly to ensure the continued operation of the stack.
All Pipe Inspection and Engineering (AL Pine) is a specialized service provider based in Malaysia that provides inspection services for challenging assets, with a focus on power generation and oil and gas sites. They inspect assets underwater or reaching high into the sky, using a portfolio of rovers and drones to help eliminate the risks associated with industrial inspections. AL Pine has been working with the Elios 3 drone since 2024, seeing success in using it to inspect the interiors of specific assets that are hard to reach. Drone inspections are a natural fit for stack inspections as they can provide visual and UT data of the exterior and interior of a stack without any rope access needed. A coal plant in Malaysia asked AL Pine to inspect their flue-duct chimney before and after it was cleaned to assess build-up as well as the efficacy of the cleaning process.
Why Use the Elios 3 Drone for Stack Inspections?
What makes the Elios 3 drone so useful for stack inspections? It boils down to the unique design and features that the drone boasts.
- Safe Access: The Elios 3 can gain remote access to challenging environments, such as stacks. The drone can gather critical data with 0 risk to inspection staff, making the overall inspection safer and faster. Pilots can fly with confidence thanks to the Elios 3's collision-tolerant cage, autonomous Return-to-Home capability, and more.
- Data Quality: The Elios 3 is not your standard inspection tool - it is the ultimate inspection solution. It can simultaneously capture ultrasonic thickness measurements, centimeter-accurate LiDAR, and 4K videos (with 12MP photos). This means you can get a comprehensive dataset that includes a digital twin of your asset with localized thickness measurements and points of interest. The data can be compared with previous inspections to track degradation and changes over the asset's lifetime.
- Cost Efficiency: By eliminating equipment such as scaffolding or man lifts, the Elios 3 offers drastic cost savings by saving time and reducing safety risks to inspection staff. Remote inspections with this drone can be completed in hours instead of days, cutting turnaround time and how long the asset is out of action.
Overall, the Elios 3 offers safer, faster, and easier ways to gather critical data without compromising on the quality of results. This makes it ideal for stack inspections where it is a highly effective alternative to traditional inspection methods.
Mission: Drone Inspection of a Stack
AL Pine was asked by the coal plant to assess the condition of the flue duct. They wanted to determine how much maintenance would be required to remove build-up in the stack, and then inspect it again afterwards to ensure the cleaning team had not missed anything. These types of inspections are under high pressure as they take place during carefully planned shutdowns. Lengthy inspections can incur prolonged downtimes, which means a loss in operational revenue. Luckily, the Elios 3 excels at reducing inspection times - in one case, using the Elios 3 cut inspection time by 80%.
The AL Pine team used the Elios 3 to access the inside of the stack, gathering 4K videos for a complete visual inspection
This site has 3 separate chimneys. AL Pine inspected the first one, which measured 180 meters tall with an 8-meter diameter. Including the access flight, the Elios 3 would be flying a 200-meter inspection path. To ensure they could georeference the flights and align the results of the laser scans, the AL Pine team set up control points inside the chimney near the expansion joint. They also mounted the Elios 3’s range extender on a tripod to ensure connectivity during the flight. After assessing the asset’s condition and shape, the pilot planned a flight route which they then executed. Overall, the entire inspection took just 2 days - a rapid turnaround that did not prolong the overall shutdown period.
The Elios 3 helped the AL Pine team assess the efficacy of cleanup efforts to mitigate clinker buildup.
The mission was highly successful, giving the coal plant managers clear results in the form of detailed visual inspections with points of interest localized within a 3D point cloud. This made it easy to compare the before/after inspections and see what impact the cleaning had had.
Results of a Drone Chimney Inspection
The drone stack inspection completed by AL Pine had a huge impact. The coal plant has already asked AL Pine to return and inspect a second stack, with the hope that they can inspect the third chimney during the next shutdown. The client was impressed with the results and saw the massive benefits of reducing the inherent risks of rope access inspections over 100 meters above the ground.
AL Pine demonstrated the benefits of using drones to inspect industrial stacks at a power generation site. Despite the challenges of working with huge assets, their small drone was able to gather exactly the right data to empower decision making and assess the asset condition. This success is part of what sets AL Pine apart from its competitors, as they use a variety of remote inspection technologies to gather crucial data without putting people at risk.
