Correlation of post-burst hydraulic transient noise for pipe burst/leak localisation in water distributions systems

© BHR Group 2018 Pressure Surges 13 Transient-pressure sensor networks (TPSNs) have been established in many water distribution systems (WDSs) for burst detection. The research investigates techniques to improve the localisation of bursts and the resultant leaks using TPSNs, which are significantly lower in capital and operational cost than acoustic sensor networks. Field trials have confirmed that the leak following a pipe burst can introduce persistent hydraulic-transient noise, the low-frequency components of which can propagate long distances in a WDS and be measured by a TPSN. The correlation analysis that is used in the acoustic-based leak detection is applicable to the hydraulic-transient signal for leak localisation.