Locating gas pipeline leakage based on stimulus-response method

Published by Elsevier Ltd. Gas pipeline leakage leads to significant environmental damages, industrial hazards and personal injuries, so detecting and locating the leakage location without delay is essential to lighten or avoid its harms. The stimulus-response method, a newly proposed technique of pipeline leakage detection and location has received much attention for its benefit of strong detecting signal and high positioning accuracy. In this paper, firstly, a complete set of gas pipeline leakage experimental device was built on the basis of stimulus-response method. Secondly, three leakage points were designed and tested to investigate the positioning accuracy. Finally, the impacts of aperture size and incentive intensity on positioning result were evaluated, and the detectable aperture size and minimum incentive intensity were determined. The results show that under fully-closed condition of the terminal valve, the minimum pore size that can be detected is 2 mm in the experimental tests (with an aperture ratio of 4 percent). It is expected that the outcomes can provide reference for improving localization methods of gas pipeline leakage.