Compromise and Sufficiently Talented Fools with Bruce Nestleroth

Rhett: On today's edition of Pipeline Things, thank you for joining us. We introduce you to two new guests, 3 .0, who you will hear about in a moment, and our esteemed guests, who I'm actually not going to name. I'm just gonna read some of his more fiery comments. Actually, just great discussion points. He says, "Science is about truth. "Engineering is about compromise." Christopher : Fantastic. Rhett: Think about what that might mean as it relates to ILI technology. And perhaps a better one, I like this one, it is statistically impossible for all ILI tools to have the same statistical performance. Christopher: And my favorite of the episode was, you cannot be foolproof for a sufficiently talented fool. Think about that one. Rhett: Oh boy, I think it's a great episode. It's a lot of fun. Stick around, hope you enjoy it. Thanks for joining us. Woo! 1:02 Rhett: All right, welcome to today's edition of Pipeline Things. I am your host, Rhett Dotson, my co -host, Christopher De Leon, and we are really excited to be with you as we continue this, the Sage series. I personally kind of prefer the name OG, but That's okay, we'll go with Sage for today. Chris, today's segway is all about deja vu. Chris: Oh man. History repeats itself. Rhett: I mean-- - History does repeat itself. And you know one of our favorite friends says, the only thing we learn from history is that we don't-- - We don't learn from history. Chris: You know, and unfortunately, you get invested in things, right? And like you kind of get a momentum and rhythm, but one thing that is guaranteed is what change and you just you got to get used to it 1:36 Rhett; so we got to catch the audience up so last time that we we filmed around PPIM and just you know time state you guys will listen to this in like May or June but it's PPIM time right now yeah was the first moment that the original miss producer got sick yeah and second string Sarah came through got her name came on board and showed up and this year and live at PPI M. – 2:09 Chris: And where is? Rhett: Trip- Trip S is sick. And Sarah - I don't see her. - I'm looking and I don't see her. - We have the backup off the bench, again coming through the new, I mean, this is like Miss Producer 3. Miss Producer version 3 .0. Chris: - Do you think it's us? Rhett: That's your name, we'll call her 3 .0. Chris: Yeah, that's actually a good one. 2:31 Rhett: I told you it would come to me on the show. So we have 3 .0, that will be our new producer. And I mean, well, I mean, the question is will, will she replace Tripp S? Is this, is this the beginning of the in for Tripp S? – Chris: But we need to sort of reflect to, I don't, do you think this is us? Rhett: Are we the cause? Chris: Yeah, do you think it's us? Do you think after about a year, they're just like, I need to move on? Rhett: They get sick at PPIM because they're like, yeah, it's time. This is how I'm going to play with us. Chris: Watch - Watch ADV marketing, give us a go. Guys, we have to have a meeting about you guys. Rhett: Absolutely. Chris: We're gonna have to rethink how we manage your game. Rhett: To the audience, you have 3 .0 filming us now. We welcome her on board. I'm sure she's gonna do a great job. But that's actually today's episode. I am really excited. We're bringing on another well -known Sage. Fun fact about this Sage, both you and I have sat in their courses. probably if anybody who's anybody in the inline inspection integrity industry has probably sat in the course of this individual. 3:28 Chris: Yeah, both operators consultants and ILI service providers. And obviously, when we were thinking about this series, the idea is, you know, there's a lot of things that we can learn from past publications, but even more so people. Rhett: Yep. Chris: And maybe even during COVID, we lost a lot of our network. And so we were like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense to bring in some of the OGs, some of our sages to just talk about hot topics. And, you know, thinking about it, I was like, you know, we do ILI. And we know what the stepbrother or the the middle child is of the ILI platform. But you know, what's the, what's the OG ILI technology? Rhett: The first born of ILI? Chris: Well, the first one is probably a caliper tool. But what's the favorite child? Rhett: Oh, yeah, MFL. - MFL is definitely the favorite child. Chris: And so, it has to be, it has to be, right? The magnetic principle, I feel like is the favorite, right? And so I was like, we need to talk about this. We already talked about regulation. Rhett: Does that make it the baby child.- Oh my God. Chris: The baby, he's even at the baby. Gets to do whatever it wants, doesn't follow the rules. Rhett: Oh my God, that's so great. Oh, man, to our audience. - I wonder if he can talk about email too, I bet you he can. - Oh, you know what, let's bring him on. The original Sage related to MFL, Mr. Bruce Nestleroth is actually our guest today, Bruce. Come on. Chris: Bruce, welcome. Bruce: Thank you. Rhett: Thank you for joining us as we talk about the, the, we said not first born, but the original, the favorite child of Iowa technology. Bruce: Yeah, there's cleaning pigs, there are cowl for pigs, but yeah, it's Rhett: I don't want to give the family designation for cleaning pigs. (laughing) Chris: That uncle. (laughing) Rhett: Well, Bruce, thank you for joining us on Pipeline Things. I know, I will say you gave us the most robust notes. We have so much good stuff to talk about today. I can't wait to get into it. But before we do that, will you please introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us, who is - Is Bruce Nestleroth? Bruce: Yeah,I’m Bruce Nestleroth, I've been in the pipeline business for over 35 years. I'm a non -destructive testing person by training. I started my career in ultrasonics, looking for small defects in aircraft parts. I mean, when I got into the pipeline business, it was like, hey, you're looking for effects like frozen defects, the size of your hand. How hard can this be? Rhett: Can I make a career out of this? Bruce: Yeah, you know, didn't care if I made a career out of it. It's a good project for a couple, couple of years. Rhett: A couple of years, it'll keep you busy, huh? Bruce: Keep me busy, keep me out of trouble. It would give me, give me, you know, I was working for a, you know, a place where billable hours billable hours and looked like I could get a whole lot out of this. I could milk it pretty good. Rhett: Yeah, and so where was that? Tell us a little bit. Where did you cut your teeth on the pipeline industry? Bruce: got started at Battelle. I always tell the story that Battelle's that place where B31G got its attraction.R -Strain, the log -secant equation, the drop weight tear test and how sharp the energy got, all that stuff. It was a place where a lot of stuff on pipelines got developed. Chris: So Bruce, I got a question. One of the first questions is, people might not always remember organizations, but they remember people. Anybody of relevance that may have worked with you at the time? Bruce: Yeah, 'cause I'm gonna take a step back there 'cause Patel's problem, I doubt that anybody really even in the pipeline industry, you're coming up today, you you'll even know Patel because Patel's not really in the pipeline business anymore. That's not they're kind of a you know have a tough problem solve the problem move on. They don't they don't do things like I always give my my favorite example is the Xerox process. They they didn't like the Xerox machine Chris: Xerox machines like you got a piece of paper and you make copies of it Bruce: yeah okay what they did is they chest And Chester Carlson, he was the guy who developed this way of let your statically transfer and stuff. I don't know. He had the patents, but he couldn't figure out how to make work in a commercial environment. And so that's what Patel did, worked on the materials and processes and things like that. When it all got done, nobody knows who Patel even worked on the Xerox process. Pipeline industry was quite the same thing. And when that started, there were issues with, you know, at the time when Patel got into the pipeline industry, all they could do is if you had a corroded pipe and you lost 20 % of the wall thickness, you just, you know, did Barlow's equation for 20 % less wall thickness. That's all you could do. That was what the regulation said. And John Keetner, he was, you know, he asked for names. Rhett: Yeah, we know John. 8:30 Bruce: You know, John was, you know, and Bill Maxey was the other guy. Bill Maxey's not quite as famous, but he never made his own company, by the way. But Bill, I think, was definitely, you know, part of that team that was working through there. And, you know, there were ones that figured out that, oh, I mean, we don't have to just go and reduce the ball thickness. It can absorb a bit of a defect in there. You know, the area equations that they came up with, they worked fine. So, you know, that's, you know, kind of how they did things. And then cracking became a problem and they, you know, worked through, oh, we have to worry about toughness. Well, yeah, they came up with great practical ways of not dealing with the hard parts of toughness. You know, we'll do a sharpie energy. That's gonna be good enough. We can make something practical and and we can make it move on. They come up with these fairly simple, easy -to use equations and self -service nets. I mean, you still use those equations, don't you? Rhett: Yep. And you know, it's funny. You mentioned Kiefner and Maxi, and those are only two names, right? But I mean, I want the audience to appreciate the depth that you guys had on the bench there,right? I mean, I'm gonna read the names. You don't have to, right? 'Cause you gave us, like you mentioned Bob Eber, Brian Lees, Tom Buminick. I mean, those guys are still in the industry, still very well recognized. Mike Rosenfeld, Pat Vieth.I mean, you were like Bruce: Those are the young guys that I started with, and you know, they're still still Rhett: But you were on like the all -star cast of pipelines. Bruce: Ray Fessler, Neil Thompson, and John Bebers, and these are all guys that they're there. When we work out of Columbus, Ohio, and people kind of look at that as Why is, you know, that's where Patel star happened. Now you've got DMVs up in Columbus. - Yeah. - Keepers up in there. – Chris: We opened an office at our time back in Columbus as well. Bruce: Yeah, and there's Gary Wilkowski. He's a guy who really understands new pipeline construction. Something I know all morning 'cause I play soccer with him. Me and Brian Lees. Rhett: Did not know you were a - Football fan. This is, you get, Chris gets very upset about football. So I'm, what was your, what was the first project that you worked on whenever you got pulled into the pipeline industry? Chris: You just know why you're still in this. You know, what was it that you started on? Rhett: What project were you going to finish in one or two months and then move on? Bruce: MFL. - MFL. (laughing) - Yeah. I mean, it was Bob Iver, one of the names you mentioned there. You know, he had this project that was basically trying to understand these pigs. ILI wasn't a term when I got started, it was pigs, and I still revert back to it. I know I'm supposed to call them that, and I'll also call them In line inspection and vendors. And I know they're service providers, having a hard time sending them to lose, Tom said, sometimes the old terminology. So Bob came to me and he goes, you know, they have these, you know, nondestructive testing. And I was in the nondestructive testing group at Patel. I wasn't in the pipeline- Rhett: because your ultrasonic background, right? Bruce: Yes and I got hired in. And they wanted me to, they said, Well, can you figure out, you know, how these tools actually work? And what, you know, what's going on? Because they sometimes they work well, "Well, sometimes they just give you garbage." And we went through that. And that was a six -month project. It wasn't a two -month, it was going to be that. It evolved into a couple of year projects where I just had these projects. And it was to do this. And we wrote about a 100 -page report on what goes on there. And this was basically, at the time There was a lot of, you know, if the tool didn't work, there was a lot of fibs going on because they didn't really understand what was going on with why these tools worked and didn't. I came up and said, well, if the defect's narrow, it's not going to, you know, that was not, you know, well known then. They kind of just thought it was just the, you know, if it ran into the defect, they get there. You know, the flux goes around the defect. That was, that was a monumental 21:29 Rhett: ground breaking back then huh? Bruce: you know you know small little pits and pinholes all that kind of stuff and it was basically the preface for that POF equation or diagram that you- Rhett: the puff diagram yeah Bruce: that everybody uses now that describes you know you can do well in this type in there and everything goes there so that was you know I wrote this report and the odd thing about this report is that I still get requests for today that- Chris: you brought us one you brought us a copy right? Bruce: I do not. I do not have copyright Rhett: We have a request. If you could get us a copy of the original GRI Betel, MFL, Bruce Nestlewall. Bruce: Before I left Keith, there's somebody borrowing my copy and I didn't even get a chance to leave with it. Chris: And they probably wrote their name in it by now. Rhett: I feel like that should be like, you know, the ASME red book on pipe background. There should be an ASME book on the NFL report, you know, but that's the gift that keeps on given, right? You're still teaching people about NFL today, correct? 13:35 Bruce: I still do and some of the graphs date back to there. I have updated a system and try to include more modern stuff. The basic principle is still the basic principle. It has good strengths. It's a good, solid, rugged technology that can withstand the pipeline environment. Chris: The torture of the pipelines. Bruce: It's not easy to get through a pipeline. That was the first thing that I had to learn when I started it myself. And I said, "You know, find defects the size of your hand." Well, that wasn't the problem. The problem is, is find defects the size of your hand and make it another 150 miles with that information You know, it's like, yeah, you know, don't lose it. That's a lot of effort and don't have things break. You know, get the way all the way through there. Chris: So, I'm a little bit curious. So you said that was a research project, right? Talk to us a little bit about the research, right? Like what was the goal of it? What were you guys, what were maybe the highlight takeaways from it at the highest level? Bruce: You know, so, yeah, we built algorithms to try to understand, you know, what is the true sensitivity of length, width, and depth on an MFL signal? You know, we build algorithms and... Chris: So, the physics component to it, right? Bruce: The physics, yes. Chris: How does, if you have a magnetic circuit and an electromagnetic material or a piece of steel that can conduct the magnetic waves, how does that operate? And what is the impact of the magnetic flux to certain type of defects? Bruce: You put a defect in the way, how's it get there? And at the time, it was just at the time when computers were getting fairly decent, and you could do finite element modeling. This was a miracle at the time, it was easy. It was not easy. I mean, it was put in a defect, go home, come back the next morning, the finite element model ran. Chris: Hopefully it finished and it didn't mess up. Bruce: It didn't have a power You know, somebody didn't turn off the computer, you know, something didn't happen and repeat and we did this for months on end. But you know, things we also did was we modeled velocity effects, you know, and, you know, all the pipe, you know, or, you know, if you start to get crud under your sensors, you move your sensors down a little bit, 15:33 Chris: and so. Yeah, so the standoff matter, does velocity matter? Bruce: Yeah, velocity matters. Chris: What about, what about MFL sensor orientations? Bruce: Well, yeah, I mean, up until then, everybody thought the magnetic field was just a single component. No, it is a vector quality. We know that, you know, but, you know, three axes are, you know, you know, that was miraculous , that was reactive to see how that was. Oh, wow. Rhett: So when we, we, you feeding off of that, when we did the show prep, one of the things that you said, and I'm going to quote it because I think it's good, and I think it relates to this. You said, "Science is about truth. Engineering is about compromise." And how does that relate to ILI? Bruce: Well, I use this in my workshop all the time because if you just went through and you designed something, well, first of all, you want to use magnetic flux leakage because, you know, that's not the technology you're going to want to do to measure wall thickness. You're going to want to do something, you know, well, ultrasonics is probably the most accurate approach to doing that, but that's not going to work in the natural gas pipeline. So here we are. You got your first compromise. Well, and everything like that, when you start to go build your tool, as I said, you want to not only record the data from that defect to size your hand, 16:50 you got to get to the other end of your pipeline pipeline with that. Well, you know, to make sure the sensors survive, you do not, the best thing to do is have that sensor within a micro inch of the surface of the pipe. Well, I think, you know, that sensor is not going to survive. You have to put, you know, a good fixed distance away from there. And so it's going to blur the image. So you're not getting the best in it. But, you know, again, you know, the object is is to get through the line and get good enough data. And so you have all these engineering compromises. Rhett: Then do you any good? You can collect the best data, but if the tool doesn't make it to the end of the line, it doesn't matter how good the data was. Bruce: If you only inspect 75 % of the line, that's a fail, right? - Yeah. - That doesn't do you any good. Chris: In some cases, if you lose a sense or two, that's a fail. - Sometimes, you know, sometimes-- - Depends on the route of the line, right? – Bruce: Right, you can control it. So, you know, you want to make sure that you get, you know, and that's, I still think it's miraculous that ILI tools and work for those distances and that with that kind of reliability that they have. It's, you know, people think it's not great reliability. It's usually like a 94, 95 % reliability. Wow, it fails 6 % of the time. I think that's still pretty darn good. You know, no other industry has that kind of inspection. Chris: This - So one of the things that comes to mind, Bruce, is you've been doing this a long time. And what's neat about you is like, for example, myself and my career, all I've done is I allowed my professional career, right? But very little of it was tied to research where we really understood the physics behind how some of these tools work. And you have that background, you were able to do that. And in the 30 plus years, the technology's changed a lot, right? We hear things like what's communicated to us and that's why I want to get your point. We hear things like we have triaxial sensors now, we have ultra-high resolution tools. Rhett: Ultra ultra high. Chris: Yeah, we had this conversation what's after what's after ultra? Nano. Rhett: Nano tech micro, Chris: then it'll be nano. Rhett: So if there are any people out there looking to invest, Christopher and I will be starting an calling it N -O -M -F -L, that's a joke. Chris: it’s a joke Bruce: but I'll go back to what I said and gotten a huge amount of trouble. Rhett: Okay, he's about to get in trouble. All right, bomb number one here it comes, audience brace yourself. Bruce: So I got asked the question, this is back in the early 1990s. And this is one of the sensors for dog friend, paddle sensors about six inches across to sensors that were maybe a half inch, maybe an inch, they were really coming down in size. Now they're down to, it's about a sixteenth of an inch, it's these nano ones. And somebody asked me, well, what's the definition? They were talking about these high resolution 10 pigs. 19:51 Now it's an ultra resolution pig, and now they're talking about, what's it called? Chris: Triaxials. Bruce: No, no, nano microns. Is that the one you're talking about? And the guy ask me, what's your definition of that? And I said, it depends on the smallest defect, you need the size. You know, if you're trying to, again, you know, measure something the size of your hand, you don't need sensors more than about every half an inch around the circumference. You know, if you, if you, you know, go the other direction, if you, if you're trying to do what they call pinholes, pinholes in the, in the industry is something that you're thinking can go pinball. You know, that's not, you know, so if you need that, you still need to get, you know, at least three, maybe five sensors across any defect. That's what, that is what a five resolution tool is.If you need to size something small, whatever small feature you need the size, you need three to five sensors smaller than that to be able to size it. Rhett: I like that. Bruce: That's all it is. And it's, and you know, you're saying, Oh, this is new stuff. It's not new. It's just, It's just now Chris: he who has more sensors wins. Bruce: Not necessarily do you want to look at all of that data? Rhett: All right, Bruce I have one question one question Do you have opinions on other things like I don't know maybe R string and tool specifications? Bruce: Well probably (laughing) Rhett: All right, well audience I want you to hang on we are gonna take a break come right back with us because I Suspect in addition to three to five sensors across the defect. Mr. Nestelroth probably has some opinions on other things you might be interested too. Hang on, I'll be right back. 12:20 Rhett: All right, welcome back from the break on this episode of Pipeline Things. So a couple of things that you miss. Audience, you don't ever get to see what happens behind the scenes in the break, but I want you all to feel like you're a part of the show. But 3 .0 has fully assumed the role of producer and I gave her some feedback on how she gives me break warnings and she said point blank, this is how I produce the show. So now that I know my role as simply a cast member, Chris: stay in my lane Rhett: you may see me from time to time ask 3 .0 for guidance on how we should do things. But no seriously, she's doing a great job. The other interesting thing is, you know, again, you might hear some, some noises in the background. That's because today we're filming is actually the second time we filmed from Fiesta in Guadalajara. Thank you to that restaurant for the venue and also for a fantastic lunch. If you're ever in, if you're ever in town in Houston, Fiesta and Guadalajara highly recommend it. But we left Bruce after we introduced Bruce, one of the things we didn't highlight enough is that if You want the opportunity to spend time with Mr. Nestleroth. That comes at least once a year through the form or twice a year? Bruce: Once a year. Once a year. Rhett: There's others too, but you're who we're after today. Bruce: Well, I'm going to take a step back again because I like to go back. When I got after that MFL report was written, they said, "Well, Let's do a workshop. Now, everybody goes to workshops now, right? Chris: You can call anything a workshop these days. Bruce: They're all over the place. 95, there was nothing. There wasn't a workshop on anything. Yes, you could learn. There was no learning rings. you know, you could get some of the papers of the public. So you were like, this is a great opportunity to break them. Well, I wasn't me. I was somebody else came up with But, you know, I got to do that, and I got to admit, the first one I did, it sucked. [laughter] Rhett: It might be like our first podcast, no, you're absolutely allowed just say it. You did CarPlay back then, didn't you? No, Bruce: it was freelance. Oh, okay. Well, we'll get there. WordPerfect, Lotus123. WordPerfect. I remember WordPerfect. There we go. Well, you know, and then what I was course to do was that by the time,you know, TRI people were funding is that you got to get somebody with some experience and luckily Petronics had just gotten sold and they were down, you know, a few people were left in Toronto. Chris: Is this where Fraser Farmer comes in? Burce: This is where Fraser Farmer and he sent me down the line and for that workshop still goes on. I know that there is a line at the end of the story is, we still do this workshop today for the Southern Gas Association. It's actually at the end of April this year. It's not just me. I only talk about, it's a three and a half day class. I talk about one day of it, but we bring in, you know, other people to talk about, you know, everything about you taking need to know how to do the defect assessment. How do you do ultrasonic inspection? How do you do? Rhett: It is a great course. I - I have taken it, Christopher's taken it. We're sending some of D2's employees to take it. It is a highly recommended course for audience. That's what I remember. Bruce: Yeah, but that's not the only way to get there. I mean, I tend not to do an awful lot of workshops directly, currently working for Rosen, but basically as an independent contractor. And What I do is I do direct, if your company wants to learn about these things, I really like to do workshops on a company -by -company basis where you feel free to ask Blackgigs. Chris: You can tell them the real answers, what you're seeing. So you can get the low -down of the dirt. Rhett: Bruce, unplugged. Chris: Maybe we can unpack some of that today. 25:24 Bruce: I think that's so much better than things, and that's what I have done. The other thing I do is if you need some background information, basic stuff, I actually think it's all these workshops you get, you kind of get a repeat after repeat of the same information. I think it's just as good to get your background information off of the Rosen Components Club Wednesday. They have a lot of stuff that's online, you can spend an hour at your leisure, pick up a little bit on this topic, a little bit wall on the stop and get your, get your fundamentals. And then, you know, then, you know, as I said, you know, if you can get Pete, and I think other companies other than the Rosen do provide, you know, technical training, if you ask for it, but you know, they will give you they get the really, the nitty gritty, Chris: you know, I, you, you bring up a really good topic here, right? Which is, I mean, I appreciate the theme of reach out and ask for help, right? I mean, that's kind of a theme that we advocate on our I podcast all the time, right? In our form is phone calls are free, right? We also often say, get out and read and reach out and understand what papers are being published, right? What work is being done, whether it's, you know, industry organizations or research like PRCI, obviously Bruce is saying, you know, there's a lot of good information out there from ILI vendors. Yeah, get educated, right? I mean, one of the things that I presented, you and I actually talked about a topic over lunch, which was, you know, true ILI capabilities, right? And a lot of a lot of times, maybe people making decisions don't either don't have the opportunity to do the homework, or they may not just not they may not know that there is help out there to help them understand what tools can actually do right? Bruce: Yeah, I mean, I find, you know, the industry has a lot of almost I'm so wishful thinking of what they, you know, they just hope it can do what they needed to do. Rhett: All right, let's cut straight to the chase. All right, Bruce, best questions that you have been asked in your course over 30 years. Because I know if 24 is almost 30 years. I'll lead you, because now we've taken so much time enjoying conversation with you, we can't go through all of them. But that's why I say people should come see you, that way they can ask you these in person, even their own. How should people understand specifications for ILI tools? – Bruce: Oh, you know, one of the things, I think specifications are important. You know, and the first thing when you're trying to understand the specification is that you don't read, you know, they all read about the same. What you really wanna pay attention to are the footnotes.And that tells you what the tool can't do? Because that's where they, you know, it's not what the, you know, the everybody looks at oh, it can do plus or minus 10%. And then you see, oh, with an 80 % certainty. Oh,and it has to be this why it has to be this long, it has to be this and has to do that. And that's where you're going to get into it and figure out, you know, and that's how you can get a little bit away from your wishful thinking and saying, 28:15 Oh, there are a lot of problems with trying to trying to get this to work in that way. And the second thing I hate about specification, I think it's probably where you thought I'd talk about Rhett: It was a loaded question Bruce: Yeah, talk about first is one of my favorite Chris:Tell us what you really think Bruce: is that it's statistically impossible for all ILI tools to have the same statistical performance. They all say they can do plus or minus 10 % with an 80 % certainty. Rhett:Why is that impossible, Bruce? Bruce: Because everybody's tool isn't gonna work the same. There's some are to be better and are some going to be worse, but they all say they do the same. Rhett: Why? Bruce: I think the guys who can do it better are afraid they're going to get it wrong. The guys who can't do it at all, figure they aren't going to get any business. Chris: They hide in the crowd. They have to get it. That's what I heard. Bruce: They all gravitate to the same number, but it's your job is a good pipeline operator is to figure out who actually can get close to that specification. Which of the guys actually can do the job? Because in the end,it's your pipeline. If it goes boom in the middle of Rhett: Wow, they are calling the you just say you mean the vendors, they're not calling the vendors. So you're, you're, you're telling me that operators should perform due diligence on making sure that vendors can meet their specifications,Not just trusting them. Bruce: I think so. Chris: Yeah, so It's valid. I mean we advocate this in fact and Don't know how great I'm presenting on this But that's exactly what the topic is for a particular paper that I'll be presenting this year at PPIM right is it's API 1163 has some guidelines in there that I feel like often in practice are overlooked Rhett: But haven't we been around Bruce? I mean you've been doing this for 30 years hasn't MFL been around long enough? I mean, doesn't it work? Bruce: No. It doesn't always work. It does work. It works under certain conditions. It, you know, it does do a very good job. I mean, it wouldn't still be around if it didn't solve some problems. And, you know, if it wasn't solving your, you know, exactly that. But the trouble is, is it's not, it's not perfect. I think that's the, So that's the difficulty is and the imperfections, you know, you still got to live with it, you know? Rhett: Do you think we get so comfortable with the technology 'cause we've been around it so long that we maybe forget which questions we should ask or take granted? Bruce: I think, you know, each generation that comes by is always asked the same, what I refer to, dumb questions over and over again, you know, because, you know, can it do that? I go, no, it really can't. It just you're not, you can't get that from what direction you're going. But you know, it's, you know, it, you know, it works occasionally quite well. And, you know, under certain conditions, but there are geometries, there's speeds, there's Rhett: Do you ever get in fights with the ii sales people? Bruce: No. Rhett: Really? I would like to put you in a room with a whole bunch of the ii sales people. Bruce: Well, no, no, I don't think I have good friends or they know that I understand it. Rhett: I'm joking, Bruce. I think they they understand that they're they're not you know, but they have different objectives. Rhett: They have different objectives. Chris: But hold on, we do need to backtrack a little bit, right? So MFL technologies do a fantastic job. They absolutely do. And they solve a lot of things. Rhett: There's a reason they're the favorite child. Chris: Yes. And - That's exactly right. It just boils down so you need to ask the right questions. Rhett: That is correct. Chris: So we said earlier, just backtracking, right? If you're looking for something that's this big, you need to have at least three to five sensors that can detect it so they can do a good job. If we have references, for example, the POP dimension classes that say, if you're looking for specific morphology, make sure the tool has the ability to do that. What you're saying is it's, but you need to be considered for orientation, 32:04 right? Maybe an Axial tool will have some limitations for some flaws. Maybe you do need a low field or a some other sensor to augment the analysis, et cetera. Bruce: Yeah, there's a million flavors of MFL and you've got to pick the right one that fits the job. - Yep. - You know, it can't be used in a Philips head screwdriver to bust up a rock. Chris: So let me make you, how do you, can you imagine if you started naming I like tools like, "Oh, that's the Rocky Road." be like, "Oh, that's the Neapolitan flavor." - Oh my gosh. Rhett: So I want to make this real, 'cause one of the things that we try to do with the Sage series is help younger and choose. What advice do you... So when you say that they need to validate or ask the right questions, how does an engineer who's maybe not a smearer, maybe it's their first MFL run, maybe it's with a new vendor, What do they need to be doing? I mean, what are you advocating that you should be doing? Bruce: Besides, you know, taking good workshops and trying to get ones that, you know, I mean, when I talk about MFL, it's a four -hour marathon. You know, if you had a classic to give you a one -hour introduction to MFL, you have not gotten deep enough. If you take it even at true for all, it's a sonic one. You know, if you try to ultrasonic wall thickness, that's not such a big thing. Any of the ultrasonic crack protection tools or EMAT tools, but they're not talking two to three, four hours about it, you aren't going deep enough. You're just scratching the surface and you're just saying, well, it's the happy solution. It's gonna work. And they'll tell you all the situations will work. And that's not the problem. You know the smallest defect you can find is the biggest defect you're gonna miss,you know That's the you know, that's you know what you have to do is figure out What what's what's gonna why am I gonna miss with this tool? Chris: on each pipeline because each pipeline is different, right? Each pipeline has its own threats Rhett: and it's it's fair to say that the the course and you're you're not answering the question directly But you're answering it the right way Which is you really have to get enough information About the technology to know what questions to ask and to know what you might miss. Chris: And one of the things that we'll advocate is, I mean, we worked at, I mean, particularly a bit longer than you was each technology company has a different measurement principle on which their ILI system is based. And it is very important for you to talk to that vendor to understand what that is. And it is important. There's, there's some material out there, but it's not consolidated. And that's why we say phone a friend, call for help. Talk to all the vendors and ask them what makes them different,right? So all the sales teams have what's called unique selling points, right? USPs, ask them what they are and then build your little matrix out and find out who does what. Like some tools are triaxial sensors, maybe Bruce, 34:47 at some point, when you buy him a beer, he'll tell you why that matters, why some tools have a low field or residual field and how that may or may not help, right? Why does one MFL tool say they can do pipe grade and all the other ones say they can't, Right, it's important to begin to ask all of these questions so that you can understand if you have this Batman utility belt No, no, I love Batman For each threat or each challenge, you know which tool you need to pull out Rhett: or you could just a Attend his workshop or be hiring to do your own workshop for you as an operator where you can ask him And make him a list. Chris: He'll make you a 20 a question What is it 20 questions list for each ally? Rhett: And if you do manage to stump him on a question, please send it to us and we'll come up with Bruce's list of stumped questions. Um, Bruce: podcast number two, Rhett: podcast number two, right? That will come back. Chris: I do have a question because I want to feel a little bit validated here. So we had a, we had a podcast on this. Rhett: You two have a shared, y 'all have a shared mutual point of grind contention. Chris: And I, I presented it at PPIM last year. So Bruce, um, What do, let me, how do I want to ask? I don't want to be polite about it. Rhett: No, don't be, please. – Chris: Can MFL do a good job at calculating our stream base versus we should calculate Rhett: Chris, we already answered this question. It's yes. Why are you asking it again? Bruce: No. Chris: One point CDL, baby. (laughing) – Bruce: it Doesn't, you know, MFL can only measure two things. It measures depth and length of a corrosion anomaly. It does not have any ability to give a river bottom through that entire corrosion area.It just use length and width. Rhett: Bruce, I have an ILI Final Report Pipe Tally on my possession right now that has a column labeled R -String. Bruce: I understand. I've seen it too. When I present this section of my workshop, I show that column. I get there and I have had people have come up to me and said, "No, the new tools can do it now. You're just out of date." Rhett: Oh! Wow! How they dated you? How they dated you? Wow! Chris: Did you ask them to do it outside? Bruce: Well, they said, "No, they can do it. And it doesn't do it. It does that kind of a piecewise r -stream. If you have a bunch of pits in a general location, it can do r -stream based off the depth and length of each of those individual pits and because they're clustered together and I know I'm talking a lot with my hands and it's confusing, but it's not going through there and measuring a river bottom.It's not going to the deepest point. It's just kind of piecewising it out through the deepest point and any corrosion area and if you have five or six together and it gives you an r -string number. Rhett: I'm going to ask you a super loaded question. 37:42 We're getting really close to wrap up time. If you were an operator would you use the values in r -string in your final reports? From MFL? Bruce: From MFL No. I don't think it provides anything more than it. The modified B31G? The B31G B31G equation does it's it's it's essentially Rhett: do you say that your workshops? Bruce: yeah Rhett: fantastic Bruce: and I don't think many people do in their workshops but I do Rhett: well because I there are ways Chris there you go you got what you want you got what you want out of the whole episode Chris: and the other thing I'll say is this is it's that is not my point if you guys have heard me speak about this at least once, I always say, work with your ally vendor, right? Understand their process, understand what they're doing and understand how their method was validated. And then once you go through that process, you can begin to make a decision as to how you can use it, if you should use it, or if you want to create a process with your vendor, by which you expect them to go through before they provide you that calculation. Rhett: Christopher, Bruce, 3 .0 is flashing signs of me. I don't know if that's the stop sign, if that's a gang sign. I'm not really sure actually what's going on. I think she's giving me the wrap -up signal. But what I want to do is I want to give you any parting thoughts,anything you'd like to say. I want to say I thoroughly enjoyed having you one. Thank you so much. You have the floor. What would you like to say? Any parting thoughts on MFL or your career or the pipeline industry? It's broad, I'll leave it broad. Chris: Once you start, you never get out. It's like the Lotus Lounge. – 39:20 Bruce: Oh, I understand that one. I guess my favorite one, and I have sayings that go through there. I have, you know, Tom Buber, who I still teach classes with. I was told he was quoting me yesterday, you were doing some of my favorite ones. And one of my all -time favorites is,you know, don't expect an MFL tool or any ILI tool, that fact, to be able to give you measurements at five miles an hour that you can't do an addiction an hour. If you can't get into the ditch and it's hard to make, even corrosion measurements in less than an hour. When you go past the defector size of your hand, you've got a tenth of a second, one tenth of a second. That's all you get to collect, all the and you're going to be sitting out there and you know they have pipes kind of around and they'll put the little dots for the lake for the creative form right Chris: they put the dots all over Bruce: the the pipes wavy and pipes you know they are not you know so you know that way it's going to be nice so it's not cylinder Rhett: it's full of crap on the inside sometimes here's one of my parting thoughts with Bruce Chris: so obviously we talked to our guests before we shoot and it's not verbatim but I might have to use this in my P -Pen presentation that it's already published since we've aired this, but it was nothing is foolproof for a sufficiently talented fool. – Rhett: Wow, all right, on that note, I think 3 .0 is gonna turn the camera off. But I just wanna say, Bruce, thank you so much for joining us. I feel like we need to have you on again sometime to cover the rest of the questions that we can't get to. But thank you for joining us on the Sage series. 40:53 Bruce: Thanks for inviting me. This was a hoot. Rhett: I'm glad you enjoyed it. Really, congratulations to 3 .0 on her first successful production, solo of the podcast. And we'll see you in two weeks on the next episode of Pipeline Things. Thanks for joining us.