Time Delay Estimation for the Identification of Leak Location

시간지연 추정을 통한 누수위치 식별 연구

Leak noise is a good source to identify the exact location of a leak point of underground water pipelines. Water leak generates broadband noise from a leak location and can be propagated to both directions of water pipes. This sound propagation due to leak in water pipelines is not a non-dispersive wave any more because of the surrounding pipes and soil. However, the necessity of long-range detection of this leak location makes to identify low-frequency acoustic waves rather than high frequency ones. Acoustic wave propagation coupled with surrounding boundaries including cast iron pipes is theoretically analyzed and the wave velocity was confirmed with experiment. The leak locations were identified both by the acoustic emission (AE) method and the cross-correlation method. In a short-range distance, both the AE method and cross-correlation method are effective to detect leak position. However, the detection for a long-range distance required a lower frequency range accelerometers only because higher frequency waves were attenuated very quickly with the increase of propagation paths. Two algorithms for the cross-correlation function were suggested, and a long-range detection has been achieved at real underground water pipelines longer than loom.