Abstract
Leaks in pipes are a common issue encountered in the water industry. Acoustic methods are generally successful in finding and locating leaks in metallic pipes, however, they are less effective when applied to plastic pipes. This is because leak-noise signals are heavily attenuated due to high damping in the pipe-wall and sound radiation into the soil. As result, high frequency leak noise does not travel long distances. To determine how far leak noise may travel in a pipe at any frequency, the attenuation of the wave responsible for leak noise propagation should be known. In this paper a new method to estimate this is described. The method is then applied to some measurements made on a bespoke pipe-test rig in the UK, and the results are compared with theoretical predictions.
Highlights
Water distributions systems are susceptible to leakage, which results in a substantial wastage of water
Reducing wastage of water through leaks directy affects the cost of water distribution
The aim of this paper is to investigate a new technique to estimate the wave attenuation factor insitu, in buried pipes
Summary
Water distributions systems are susceptible to leakage, which results in a substantial wastage of water. The noise from a leak in a buried plastic pipe generally has low frequency content, occurring well below the pipe ring frequency [5] In this frequency region, only four types of waves are, in general, responsible for most of the energy transfer in a pipe [6] and [7]. In buried plastic water pipes leak noise propagates in an axis-symmetric wave that is predominantly a fluid wave, but is strongly coupled to the pipe-wall, such that there is significant radial motion [5] and [7]. The aim of this paper is to investigate a new technique to estimate the wave attenuation factor insitu, in buried pipes This technique is based on the envelope of the cross-correlation function between two vibration signals measured on the pipe, either side of the leak.
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