Single event leak detection in a pipeline using the first three
15 Hydraulic transients (water hammer waves) can be used to excite a pressurized pipeline, 16 yielding the frequency response diagram (FRD) of the system. The FRD of a pipeline 17 system is useful for condition assessment and fault detection, because it is closely related 18 to the physical properties of the pipeline. Most previous FRD based leak detection 19 techniques use the sinusoidal leak induced pattern recorded on the FRD, either shown on 20 the resonant responses or the anti resonant responses. In contrast, the technique reported 21 in the current paper only uses the responses at the first three resonant frequencies to 22 determine the location and size of a leak. The bandwidth of the excitation only needs to 23 be five times that of the fundamental frequency of the tested pipeline, which is much less 24 than the requirement in conventional FRD based techniques. Sensitivity analysis and 25 numerical simulations are performed to assess the robustness and applicable range of the 26 proposed leak location technique. The proposed leak location technique is verified by 27 both numerical simulations and using an experimental FRD obtained from a laboratory 28 pipeline. 29 30