Explosions caused by leaking gas pipes under city streets have frequently made headlines in recent years, including one that leveled an apartment building in New York this spring.
Pipeline Leaks may present serious economical and health problems. Therefore, leaks must be quickly detected, located, and repaired.
Unfortunately, most state-of-the-art leak detection systems have limited applicability, and they are neither reliable nor robust.
Typically, leaks are found using aboveground acoustic sensors, which listen for faint sounds and vibrations caused by leakage, or in-pipe detectors, which sometimes use video cameras to look for signs of pipe breaks. But all such systems are very slow, and can miss small leaks altogether.
Now researchers at MIT have devised a robotic system that can detect leaks quickly and with high accuracy by sensing a large pressure change at leak locations.
This new system can detect leaks of just 1 to 2 millimeters in size, and at relatively low pressure.
The system can detect leaks in gas pipes, water pipes, or in petroleum pipelines.
The researchers have begun discussions with gas companies and water companies about setting up field tests under real-world conditions.
Current acoustic tests are only effective for detecting sound and vibration in metal pipes.
plastic pipes tend to dissipate the sounds too quickly. Such systems are also time-consuming and require expert operators.
But the newly developed small robotic device can move as fast as 3 mph through pipes, and are almost entirely automated. Ultimately, such devices could be put into a system of pipes and left in place indefinitely, conducting automatic, nonstop monitoring of the system.
Leaks in water pipes can waste up to half the water in a system; oil-pipeline leaks can lead to toxic spills and prolonged, expensive cleanup operations. All of these systems could benefit significantly from this newly invented leak-detection method.
The robotic device consists of two parts.
One part is, a small robot, with wheels to propel it through pipes.
And another part is, a drum-like membrane that forms a seal across the width of the pipe.
When a leak is encountered, liquid flowing toward it distorts the membrane, pulling it slightly toward the leak site. That distortion can be detected by force-resistive sensors via a carefully designed mechanical system, similar to the sensors used in computer trackpads , and the information sent back via wireless communications.
At present, the system requires a fairly uniform pipe diameter, but the researchers are working on a version that will have more flexibility to deal with variations caused by damage, obstacles, or scale buildup inside pipes.
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