Experimental study on leakage monitoring of pressurized water pipeline based on fiber optic hydrophone

Abstract

Abstract Leakage of water pipelines will significantly endanger the safety operation and service performance of the pipelines. Based on the vibration of pressurized water pipelines deriving from leakage, the BA-FH3200 fiber optic hydrophone (FOH) leakage detection long-term detection system was adopted in prototype tests. The vibration-based real-time leakage monitoring method of the pressurized water pipeline was studied. During the test, the leakage was simulated by opening a spherical valve in the middle of the pipe, and an FOH was placed right above the pipe wall to detect the vibration signal along the pipe. The FOH analysis software was used to monitor the pipeline operation status in real time and acquire data. Then, the data were processed by a self-developed post-processing program, and the parameters were optimized through back-calculation. The test results reveal that the leakage positioning error lay between ±0.07 m, and real-time monitoring (i.e., early warning alarm and leakage positioning) of the FOH for the pressurized water pipeline was feasible.