Acoustic Model for Leak Detection of Water Supply Pipeline
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14, Issue 1
Abstract
The leak detection of water supply pipelines is significant for the protection of water resources. Acoustic detection is a common method used to investigate water supply pipeline leaks. Although some acoustic methods for the leak detection of the water supply pipeline have been developed experimentally, the theoretical investigation of said acoustic methods is still limited. Compared with aeroacoustics, the development of quantitative jet acoustic theory towards flow field calculations of liquid pipeline leak has not been reported, and the characteristics of the liquid flow field cannot be quantitatively transformed into the acoustic model. In this paper, the liquid pipeline leak is combined with piston acoustics, and the acoustic model for the leak detection of the water supply pipeline is quantitatively studied for the first time. The acoustic pressure value can be directly calculated using pipe and liquid parameters, and the validity of the model can be verified experimentally. Based on theoretical and experimental investigations, it is found that the leak sound pressure increases significantly with increasing pipeline pressure and decreases with increasing detection distance. The material composition of the pipes has little influence on the leak sound pressure. The theoretical values based on the proposed acoustic model and the experimental values agree well, where the maximum difference between them is 8.5% and the average difference is 2.6%. This study presents a foundation for the development of acoustic leak detection technology of the liquid pipeline.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11874126), and the Leading Talents of Guangdong Province Program.
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Published In
Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14 • Issue 1 • February 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 15, 2022
Accepted: Aug 11, 2022
Published online: Oct 20, 2022
Published in print: Feb 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 20, 2023
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