Abstract
In response to a growing environmental awareness for the need of water leakage detection, we have been introducing a water distribution management system with high frequency pressure measurements. The consequences of sudden pipe breaks can be very costly because of the service interruption, the cost of repairs, and the damage to the surrounding property and infrastructure. Therefore, this research presents a new method for continuous monitoring in order to detect and locate breaks in water distribution. We develop a novel burst detection method without pipe network model.
For an accurate location of the burst, the proposed method needs high frequency pressure data (sampling at 0.85 second intervals) of hydraulic transient events. A sudden pipe break creates a negative pressure wave that travels in both directions away from the break point and is reflected at the pipeline boundaries. Using the pressure data measured at one location along the pipeline, the timing of the initial and reflected transient waves induced by the break determines the location of the break. As a result, this method can be used to minimize the detection and location time after the burst occurs. We have gathered the data of sudden pipe break accidents for developing and evaluating the burst detection method. The result of this evaluation shows the effect of the proposed method and the importance of high frequency data acquisition. Also, our research shows that the location estimated using this technology, was equal to the actual location where the leakage occurred.
