New Leak Localization Approach in Pipelines Using Single-Point Measurement

Abstract

Pipeline failures cause significant environmental and property damage and fatalities every year. Current methods have a lack of sensitivity to pinpoint the leak location with sufficient accuracy when the leak is at the stable regime. The acoustic emission (AE) method relies on propagating elastic waves caused by the leak turbulence. The current AE leak detection methodology relies on two neighbor sensors, and requires either a long wiring system or a wireless system with clock synchronization, which raises many other challenges. In this paper, the new leak localization approach is proposed to detect the leak from a single point measurement with two sensors designed to be sensitive to the wave motions generated in pipes at two orthogonal directions (radial and axial). The approach is demonstrated on a laboratory-scale steel pipe in comparison with the conventional two-neighbor sensor approach. The result indicates that the proposed localization approach successfully pinpoints the leak location with good accuracy, which enables the implementation of single-point wireless acoustic emission sensing in long-range pipeline networks.