Abstract
The change in the temperature of an underground water pipeline and its surrounding environment caused by a leakage has been detected by a variety of devices. Among the most popular technologies are infrared cameras, distributed temperature sensing using fiber optic cables, and analog active temperature sensors. In this paper, a novel low-cost leakage detection system composed of two analog active temperature sensors is presented. The proposed system detects water leakages by comparing the readings of two analog active temperature sensors, one at the surface at a depth of 2 cm of a sand layer covering a buried water pipeline and the other is adjacent to the first sensor at the same depth in a thermally insulated portion by a polystyrene barrier. The results of the heat flow simulation developed with FEMM (Finite Element Method Magnetics) 4.2, which is free, open source, cross-platform capable of solving heat flow problems, showed that the addition of the insulation is expected to increase the difference between the readings of the sensors from 0.011 to 0.063 K (°C) when there is a leakage, and thus the addition of the insulation can be effective in making the effect of leaked water on the surface temperature more detectable. Experimental results indicated the capability of the proposed system in detecting water leakage which caused a temperature difference of 1.47 °C after 30 minutes of running a leaking water system. Furthermore, a laser communication system was built to allow for the transmission of an alarm signal from the sensing node above the underground pipeline to a master node which should have an internet connection to upload information to a cloud storage which can be accessed by different users.
Highlights
Experts from Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) expressed dissatisfaction with the usage of the traditional acoustic leakage detection methods because of high acoustic noise in the field
Though 433MHz RF link can be used by Arduino Uno, a laser communication system, that consists of a low power laser diode and photoresistor, is used between the sensing and master nodes because of their relative low cost
The widely used active temperature (AAT) sensor, LM35, cannot detect a small temperature difference of 0.198 K (◦C) accurately where its readings’ accuracy is within ± 0.5 ◦C, it still has a potential as its resolution is 0.01 ◦C and it has been used previously for leakage detection purposes [14]
Summary
Experts from Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) expressed dissatisfaction with the usage of the traditional acoustic leakage detection methods because of high acoustic noise in the field. Though 433MHz RF link can be used by Arduino Uno, a laser communication system, that consists of a low power laser diode and photoresistor, is used between the sensing and master nodes because of their relative low cost Because of this aspect, low cost, laser diodes have been part of IoT (Internet of Things) systems [24], and optical sensors in general [25], [26]. When the access to the sensor node is difficult, applying wireless power transfer techniques to recharge the battery can be alternative to replacing it, where inductive coupling has been widely used in such case [27]–[29], and especially in powering underground sensors where the magnetic field is not subject to absorption and scattering by soil, rocks and water, unlike the electromagnetic field [30], [31]. For the understudy WDN where the pipeline is buried at a depth of several meters, it is preferable for the sensor node to be on the surface
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