Leakage source estimation based on gas cloud formations obtained from infrared visualization measurements

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a concern about the occurrence of gas leak fire accidents caused by the aging deterioration of gas piping in plant facilities. However, the current gas monitoring system cannot estimate the location of the leak source in some cases because the leak source cannot be captured directly by the system due to many blind spots in the piping and equipment in the plant. In this study, we develop a method to visualize the leaking gas cloud using an infrared camera and to estimate the leak source by inverse problem analysis. The analysis uses the shape of the gas cloud created by image processing such as Fourier analysis and binarization. Specifically, using images of actual diffusing gas, we perform linear fitting of the gas cloud and its contour using the least-squares method. The intersection of the contour line and the center line of the cloud is taken as the source of the gas. As a result, the location of the gas leak could be easily estimated.