Real time condition monitoring of buried water pipes

Asset owners are continually investigating advances in real time condition monitoring systems with a high spatial resolution in order to improve the management of their assets. Utility network providers would particularly welcome such a system due to the inaccessible nature of their assets and their large extent. However, this inaccessibility and extensive nature poses significant issues for any monitoring system in terms of where to position the sensors, the powering of these sensors and how to retrieve the data from these sensors. This paper describes research currently being undertaken at the University of Birmingham investigating the powering and sensor system configuration for a randomly and non-randomly distributed array of sensors for monitoring buried water pipes.

► Identification of potential power sources which can be used in the underground infrastructure environment. ► Development of an initial radioisotopic prototype power source. ► Development of prototype sensor nodes to minimise the power usage for inaccessible sensor systems. ► Development of an indirect pressure sensor for pipeline monitoring.