Experimental Examination of Piping System Leak Localization via a Non-intrusive Band Sensor System through Cross Correlation Function

At industrial sites, developing technologies that can rapidly detect pipe damage is crucial to minimize losses caused by pipe ruptures or leakages. Pipe damage can be categorized as either a rupture or a leakage depending on its size; various studies have been conducted to detect them. In this study, a non-intrusive pipe pressure monitoring sensor, wrapped around the pipe from the outside, was utilized to measure the internal pressure and fluid-structure coupled vibration. Based on the measured signals, a leak localization technique was proposed and examined experimentally. The proposed technique estimates the time difference between two signals measured by non-intrusive band-type sensors using cross-correlation functions and estimates the leakage location using the distance between the sensors and the wave propagation velocity. Experimental results demonstrated that the actual leakage location can be estimated within 8% accuracy using this method.