Comparative study of instantaneous frequency based methods for leak detection in pipeline networks

Methods of pressure transient analysis can be seen as a promising, accurate and low-cost tool for leak and feature detection in pipelines. Various systems have been developed by several groups of researchers in recent years. Such techniques have been successfully demonstrated under laboratory conditions but are not yet established for use with real field test data.The current paper presents a comparative study of instantaneous frequency analysis techniques based on pressure transients recorded within a live distribution network. The instantaneous frequency of the signals are analysed using the Hilbert transform (HT), the Normalised Hilbert transform (NHT), Direct Quadrature (DQ), Teager Energy Operator (TEO) and Cepstrum.This work demonstrates the effectiveness of the instantaneous frequency analysis in detecting a leaks and other features within the network. NHT and DQ allowed for the identification of the approximate location of leaks. The performance TEO is moderate, with Cepstrum being the worst performing method.

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► Pressure transients caused by water hammer pulses were requires from field tests.
► These were analysed using a variety of signal processing methods.
► All found the leak, but the most effective were normalised Hilbert transform (NHT) and direct quadrature (DQ).