Adaptive filter signal pressure detector in high density polyethylene water distribution networks to detect and locate leaks

The currently sold leak detectors worldwide are based on the analysis of acoustic emissions from pipeline leaks. Unfortunately, they not only detect pipeline leakage signals but also the noise from daily human activities and road traffic. These usually cause false alarms, resulting in damage to infrastructures when using these devices with inexperienced agents. In this study, the authors propose as a first contribution pressure transmitters, whose information is not influenced by environmental noise. In addition, for an arbitrarily chosen position of the pressure sensor, an analysis is carried out on the denoising quality as a function of the filter parameters for different denoising filters like EMD (empirical mode decomposition) and wavelet (WT). In our case, we opted for the adaptive filtering Kalman which presents a better metric signal-to-noise ratio of 46 dB like WT and EMD denoising. A novel detector based on adaptive filter signal pressure (AFSPD) is proposed to detect a leak. Many methods are utilized to know the leak’s position, which generally depends on the proposed mathematical model. In our work two methods delay time and numerical cross-correlation are used to locate the leak relative to one of the transducers. In doing this, the validation of the detection and localization technique is confirmed by previously known positions, on the designed PEHD prototype pipe with a diameter of 40mm and a length of 100m. Furthermore, an acquisition system is based essentially on a DSpace professional research acquisition card and pressure transducers installed on the prototype pipeline.