Drill Pipe Inspection AI

Add a real-time inspection layer to every joint of drill pipe, casing, and tubing that crosses your inspection line with Roboflow vision AI for drill pipe inspection.

Threaded connection inspection:

• Detect galling, dents, pitting, and pulled or stretched threads on pin and box connections, including the seal shoulder and the last engaged threads where damage matters most
• Grade thread damage against your acceptance criteria and DS-1 and NS-2 categories, so a connection gets classified consistently across shifts and inspectors
• Inspect shoulder faces, bevels, and refacing results after rethreading, and confirm thread protectors are in place before the joint moves to the rack

Tool joints, hardbanding, and pipe body:

• Measure tool joint OD wear and detect shoulder damage, slip and tong marks, and box swell that push a joint out of premium class
• Classify hardbanding condition: cracks, spalling, wear-through, and bands that need reapplication, on both new and re-applied hardbanding
• Detect pipe body corrosion, pitting, slip area cracks, and coating breakdown, and flag joints for EMI, ultrasonic wall thickness, or magnetic particle follow-up

Per-joint traceability and failure analysis:

• Capture the complete image set for every joint at every inspection station, read the serial number, heat number, and stencil with OCR, and store the record so anyone can pull the entire inspection for a single joint in seconds
• Build the evidence file for failure analysis and customer claims from the images, classifications, and timestamps already on record, rather than reconstructing what an inspector saw
• Track a joint's condition across inspection cycles to show wear progression, support class downgrades, and back up warranty decisions with the picture

Bring intelligence to every joint today. Stop a galled thread from becoming a washout, and stop a customer claim from becoming a search for photos that do not exist.

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Frequently asked questions

What is drill pipe inspection with Vision AI?

Drill pipe inspection with Vision AI uses cameras at the thread bench, on the inspection line, at the yard, or in a technician's hand to detect and classify defects on drill pipe, casing, tubing, and other OCTG automatically: thread galling, dents, and pitting on pin and box connections, tool joint OD wear and shoulder damage, hardbanding cracks and wear, and pipe body corrosion and cracks. Models train on your own pipe images, so they learn your connection types, thread forms, and inspection lighting. Every image is captured and stored against the joint's serial number, so the full inspection record for any single joint can be retrieved for failure analysis or a customer claim. It adds a consistent visual layer alongside the EMI, ultrasonic, and magnetic particle inspection your program already runs under API 5DP, API 5CT, API RP 7G, DS-1, and NS-2.

Can Vision AI find galling and pitting on threaded connections reliably enough to grade them?

Thread inspection is one of the highest-stakes visual tasks in OCTG, because a galled pin that passes goes downhole and the failure shows up as a washout or a twist-off. Vision AI handles it with segmentation and detection models trained on close-up images of your own connections, labeled by your thread inspectors with the categories your acceptance criteria use, so the model learns the difference between a cosmetic mark, a repairable dent, and galling that rejects the connection.

Does drill pipe inspection with Vision AI support API 5DP and DS-1?

Yes. API 5DP (drill pipe specification covering manufacture, inspection, and testing), API 7-1 (rotary drill stem elements including tool joints), API 5CT (casing and tubing specification), API RP 7G (recommended practice for drill stem design and operating limits, including inspection classes), DS-1 (the T.H. Hill drill stem design and inspection standard used across the industry for used drill pipe classification), NS-2 (the Fearnley Procter inspection standard for drill stem components), and ISO 11961 (the international drill pipe standard) define the inspection scope, acceptance criteria, and classification categories. Roboflow is the inspection engine: it captures the imagery, applies your visual criteria consistently, and produces a timestamped, serial-number-keyed record for every joint. Your quality, inspection, and engineering teams own the acceptance criteria, the gauging and NDT methods those standards also require, and the final class assignment.

Can it integrate with our inspection reporting, ERP, and pipe tally systems?

Yes. Roboflow Workflows delivers results over REST APIs, MQTT, OPC UA, or direct database writes into the systems the mill, yard, and rig already use: ERP and quality systems such as SAP and Oracle, inspection reporting and pipe tally software, rental fleet and asset management systems, and PLCs or line controllers where a reject should stop the joint from advancing to the rack. OCR reads serial numbers, heat numbers, and stencils at capture, so every image lands in the record for the right joint without manual entry. Image records can be stored on-prem at the plant, in your VPC, or in a customer-facing portal, so a failure analyst or a customer service team can pull the full inspection set for a joint by serial number. Models run on edge hardware at the inspection station, so the line does not depend on connectivity.

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