Development of a TFR-Based Method for the Simultaneous Detection of Leakage and Partial Blockage in Water Supply Pipelines
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 7
Abstract
Pipe leakage and partial blockage are the two common types of pipe defects in water supply systems. In practical systems, these defects, which may cause great waste of water and energy resources and can induce potential reduction of system operation capacity, are usually formed simultaneously. This paper develops an effective transient frequency response (TFR)–based method to characterize and detect simultaneously these two types of pipe defects. To this end, an analytical expression is first derived to characterize the simultaneous effect of leakage and partial blockage on TFR in water pipelines. The obtained results are then validated through laboratory experimental tests for the detection of multiple pipe defects. After validation, extensive numerical applications that cover typical ranges of test conditions are adopted to further investigate the applicability and accuracy of the developed TFR-based method. The application results demonstrate high accuracy and wide applicability of this TFR-based method to detect simultaneously potential leakage and partial blockage in water supply pipelines. The advantages and limitations of this TFR-based method are discussed in the final section for practical applications in urban water supply systems.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request (including analytical derivation and numerical test data).
Acknowledgments
This research work was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) under projects 25200616, 15201017, and T21-602/15R.
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Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 7 • July 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 1, 2019
Accepted: Dec 16, 2019
Published online: May 11, 2020
Published in print: Jul 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Oct 11, 2020
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