Abstract To study the effectiveness and application effects of leakage monitoring techniques for gas field water pipelines in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, seven kinds of flow limitation holes with different diameters were used to simulate the leakage of the gas field water pipeline to carry out a field test. The monitoring conditions of two leakage monitoring techniques, namely dynamic pressure wave compound method and negative pressure wave and transmission balance method, were compared and analyzed under different working conditions. The test results showed that: (1) When the pipeline was full, the leakage with apertures being smaller than 2 mm could not be effectively monitored. A single-end alarm could be achieved using the dynamic pressure wave compound method, but the positioning was ineffective. An alarm could not be effectively achieved using the transmission balance method. (2) When the pipeline was full, for the leakage with apertures being 2 mm and above, early warning could be well achieved using the both methods, and the monitoring effects were nearly the same, with the average positioning error being about 48 m and the average alarm response time being about 58 s. (3) When there were empty pipe slug flows in the pipeline, only apertures being 5 mm and above could be alarmed; however, positioning could not be effectively achieved, and system technical indicators could not be reached. (4) When there were large elevation differences in the gas field water pipeline and empty pipe slug flows could not be eliminated, the both techniques were not applicable.
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