Many water distribution systems in this country are almost 100 years old. About
26 percent of piping in these systems is made of unlined cast iron or steel and is
in poor condition. Many methods that locate leaks in these pipes are time-consuming,
costly, disruptive to operations, and unreliable at finding small leaks. This article
presents the results of research conducted at the US Environmental Protection Agency's
Urban Watershed Research Facility in Edison, NJ. The project sought
ways to use acoustic technology to pinpoint leaks as small as 0.1 gph (0.1 mL/s)
in petroleum pipelines, a regulatory requirement for those lines. Because all experiments
were conducted using water and on pipelines of size and material similar to those
found in many water distribution systems, results also apply to these pipelines. Although
leaks of 0.1 gph (0.1 mL/s) are unusually small to search for in water distribution
systems, researchers were able to locate small leaks within 1 ft (0.3 m), which
is comparable to the best practice of commercially available leak-pinpointing technology
for water distribution systems. Includes 7 references, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. 92 - No. 7 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 150 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Published : | 07/01/2000 |
