Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Wavelet Analysis and Pattern Recognition, Baoding, 12-15 July 2009

STUDY ON LEAK LOCATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BURIED GAS PIPELINE

YANG JIAO1, GUANG-HAI LI2,GUANG-KAI SUN1,YING-KUI ZHU1,YU-BO ZHAO1
1
College of Information Science & Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang 050018, China
2
China Special Equipment Inspection and Research Center, Beijing 100013, China
E-MAIL: jiaoyang@hebust.edu.cn, wcica06@dlut.edu.cn, lzhzsun963@sohu.com, zhu_yingkui@126.com,
zybzhaoyubo@yeah.net

Abstract: acquirement synchronization in same correlation group.

This paper discusses the leak location technology for
buried gas pipeline. In the paper the leak model of buried gas
pipeline is built, the leak location algorithm based correlation
theory is designed, and the buried gas pipeline is tested in
experiment site. Experimental results show that the method is
effective on leak identification and leak location for the buried
gas pipeline.
Consistency can be realized by sensor manufacturing
technology and frequency response testing. Acquirement
synchronization can be realized by GPS time standard[2].
This paper will adopt waveform correlation algorithm to
calculate the delta-T, and can realize accurate leak source
location by use of location upon delta-T algorithm.

Keywords: 2. The leak location model for buried gas pipeline

Leak location; Correlation location algorithm; Wavelet;
Buried gas pipeline
1. Introduction
Continuous Acoustic emission (AE) signal will be
produced when pipeline leaks. For continuous AE signal,
AE parameters usually used by burst emission (count, count
rate, rise time, last time, amplitude distribution, delta-T)
already become meaningless. The location upon delta-T
method used by burst emission can’t be used in continuous
AE signal. According to the characters of continuous AE
signal, people develops zone location method based on
signal amplitude attenuation, the location method based on
waveform interference, the location upon delta-T method
based on waveform correlation[1，3].
To realize zone location method based on signal
amplitude attenuation must consider two conditions
precedent. Firstly, the same sensitivity of all channels
In all kinds of pipeline leak location model, there is the
model based on pressure attenuation, the model based on
different distribution of biology and chemical feature, etc.
In AE technology, the model based on AE waveform
transmitting is used. AE sensor is coupled tightly on pipe
wall. It can be considered that AE signal transmit mainly to
sensor along with pipe wall and liquid in pipeline. When
pipe diameter can be ignored relative to transmit distance,
and the influence of liquid in pipeline can also be ignored,
leak sonic wave will transmit along one line. Leak sonic
wave will attenuate as it is affected by some factors, such as
pipe material, pipe protecting coating etc. The pipeline
can be simplified as a waveguide. As shown in Figure1.
Sensor A Leak point Sensor B Flow direction
X
D

(contains sensor and amplifier) must be adjusted. Secondly,

there should be no any electronic or mechanical noise in
Figure 1. Simple transmission model of pipeline leak AE
testing site. In two conditions, it is easy to match the first,
but it is impossible to eliminate the background noise
x is the distance from leak point to sensor A. D is the
completely. The location method based on waveform
distance between two sensors. Leak AE signal is not single
interference has higher requirement for the hardware, and
frequency or several frequency waves that is transmitting as
its testing time is longer. In project, the location upon
constant speed. It is a continuous wide-band signal with
delta-T method based on waveform correlation is adopted.
quite energy distribution in lower frequency band.
This method has lower requirement for the hardware. It
requires better consistency of sensors and better

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 Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Wavelet Analysis and Pattern Recognition, Baoding, 12-15 July 2009
3. The leak location algorithm for buried gas pipeline
As influenced by external environment, leak signal
may be submerged in the noise. It is very difficult to realize
accurate location if we only use correlation analysis method.
Hence, the AE signal that is acquiring should be made
wavelet denoising and wavelet reconstruction, and then
leak identification can be made. If there is leak, the
processed signal will be calculated in correlation location
algorithm model and the delta-T will be extracted. With the
delta-T, location calculation can be done according to the
linear location algorithm.
3.1. The formula of location upon delta-T
As shown in Fig.2, A, B are two AE sensors. The leak
point is between two sensors.
Leak point
v
A B
X of leak signal received in the same time. When correlation
D result is biggest, the correlation formula is as follow:
Figure 2. Schematic diagram of pipeline
Two signals from two sensors are made to do
correlation calculation, delta-T that AE signal transmit to
position A and position B can be obtained. The formula (1)
is as follow.
D − (v × ∆t )
x= (1)
2 formula can be gained as follow.
y x the distance from leak point to sensor A
y D the distance between two sensors
y v sonic wave transmitting speed
y ∆t delta-T that leak signal transmit to two sensors
3.2. The leak location algorithm
The sonic speed v that leak AE signal transmits in the
buried gas pipeline should be tested. The data can be
obtained by engineering manual. It also can be obtained
through field testing if possible.
As the leak point is unknown, it is important to select
suitable sampling length in order to ensure that two sensors
can receive the signal transmitting in one time. Hence,
considering the extreme situation, leak point lay in one
sensor, the shortest sampling length must be t = D / v ,
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for that another sensor can receive leak point signal in the
same time. In fact, the sampling length is 2t at least, and
fixed sampling frequency is selected.
The front part A1 of signal A(n) received by
sensor A (it contains one leak signal length at least) is
selected. The front part B1 of signal B (n) received by
sensor B(same length as A1 ) is correlated with A1 by use
of correlation formula. The result r1 can be gained. Then,
moving backward the signal received by sensor B dot by
dot, the equal length signal is correlated with A1
continuously, r1 , r2 , … can be obtained.
N −1
rAB (m) = ∑ A(n)B(n + m) (2)
n =0
N dot number of signal A1 or B1
m from 0 to N-1
Moving backward A(n) dot by dot, the signal of
same length is correlated with B, r−1 , r− 2 , … can be
gained. As the leak signal is random, only the correlation
result of the leak signal received in the same time has the
biggest correlation degree. So formula (2) is self-relation
N −1
rL (i ) = ∑ A(n)B(n + i ) (3)
n =0
This can be obtained by the nature of self-relation
function. Comparing the correlation result above, the
maximum can be found. After leak signal arriving sensor A
(or sensor B), it delay a period of time to arrive sensor B (or
sensor A). Then, the delta-T that signal arrive two sensors
will be obtained. As the sampling frequency is known, the
M
∆t = max (4)
f
According to formula (1), the leak point can be
located.
4. The leak location experiment for buried gas
pipeline
4.1 Buried gas pipeline in experimental site
The buried steel pipeline is 60 meters long, and buried
depth is 50cm. The actual leak is imitated by ball valve that
is located in 23 meters from pipe left. The sensors
placement is indicated in Fig.3. The pressure inside pipe is
0.5 MPa. The sampling rate of the acquirement instrument
 Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Wavelet Analysis and Pattern Recognition

is 500kS/s.The schematic diagram of experimental pipe is scale. The spectrum diagram is spectrum information
shown in Fig.3. relative to each decomposition scale. The detailed
description is made in the title of diagram. (only scale 5,6 ,7
Sensor A AE source (leak) Sensor B is shown in Fig.5).

1# 2#
23m 37m

60m

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of experimental pipeline

4.2 Sonic speed testing for buried gas pipeline

y Experimental method location upon delta-T method

for bursting signal
y Experimental object buried steel pipeline
y Experimental instrument SWAES 5 channels AE
instrument
y Experimental result sonic speed in buried gas pipeline
is about 3000m/s

4.3 Leak location experiment analysis for buried gas

pipeline

Fig.4 is the AE signal and its spectrum produced by

pipe leak that is tested in experiment site.

Figure 4. AE signal produced as pipeline leak

The leak AE signal can be seen obviously from
time-domain waveform in Fig.4. When we make this signal
to do correlation analysis directly, the position of pipe leak
point can’t be located. The leak signal is wide-frequency
signal that can be seen in the spectrum. So it is necessary to
do further analysis by the method of wavelet feature
spectrum. According to theory analysis and experiment
testing, we select db3 as wavelet basis. The time-domain
signal is decomposed as 7 grades, the result is shown in
fig.5. The time-domain waveform in Fig.5 is the
time-domain reconstruction signal of each decomposition
Figure 5. Wavelet transform result of pipe leak AE signal
According to the wavelet character spectrum analysis
method, the each scale component of wavelet
decomposition for leak AE signal in buried gas pipeline has
been analyzed. According to the characters of continuous
AE signal, it can be seen that there is more steep sharp peak
in scale 5,6,7 on spectrum. In time-domain diagram, scale
5,6 is continuous signal obviously. So scale 5,6
reconstruction signal is selected to do correlation location
analysis. The correlation location result is shown as Fig.6.

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 Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Wavelet Analysis and Pattern Recognition
Figure 6. Correlation location diagram of scale 5
reconstruction signal
From Fig.6, it can be seen that the position of pipe leak
point is x = [60 − 1885 × 3000 / 500000] / 2 = 24.35m .
The actual position is 23m from the pipe left. The location
error is [(24.35 − 23) / 60 × 100％]＝2.25％.
Figure7.Correlation location diagram of scale 6 reconstruction
signal
From Fig.7, it can be seen that the position of pipe leak
point is x = [60 − 1905 × 3000 / 500000 ] / 2 = 24 .29 m .
The actual position is 23m from the pipe left. The location
error is [(24.29 − 23) / 60 × 100％]＝2.15％ .
From the correlation diagram of Fig.6 and Fig.7, it can
be seen that scale 5,6 can all recognize the position of leak
source. The signal reconstructed by scale 5,6 can reflect the
essential character of leak AE signal in buried gas pipeline.
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5 Conclusions
The efficient method adapt to leak location for buried
gas pipeline is proposed in this paper. It is the method based
on waveform correlation delta-T detection. The leak
location model and algorithm for buried gas pipeline are
given. Through actual testing, the experiment result shows
that pipeline leak can be recognized and leak source can be
located more precisely by use of this method. The location
error can be controlled within 5%.
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