Approach for Near-Real-Time Pipe Burst Detection and Location Estimation Utilizing Any Sequence of Harmonics of the Transient Pressure Signal

The purpose of the paper is to present an approach for real-time pipe burst detection and location estimation, based on the changes in the harmonics and analysis of the corresponding damping that is caused by the burst. The amplitude of each resonance response of the transient pressure wave caused by the burst is damped differently due to the occurrence of the burst. However, utilizing higher order harmonics beyond the first few fundamental frequencies has not previously been possible as it leads to an increasing number of possible solutions to the burst location, which limits the application of the method. An algorithm for damping analysis has been developed which overcomes this limitation, and is able to exclude most of the incorrect solutions when utilizing the information contained in higher order harmonics. Additionally, the gap between data windows can be set so that it enables the real-time data analysis by letting the window gap equal the reciprocal of the sampling rate. Therefore, this algorithm makes utilizing any sequence of harmonics of the signal be possible for real-time burst detection and location estimation. The approach has been verified both numerically and experimentally with acceptable accuracy.