The Future of Leak Detection Starts Today – Gutermann (2024)
Summary
Sometimes an alert member of the public reports a leak when they see water seeping out of the ground, sometimes an employee finds a suspicious spot during routine checks with the listening stick or noise logger. The entry of “Big Data” and “Cloud-Computing” into water supply management The principle of permanent leak monitoring is known from many other application areas: a large number of sensors is distributed so it covers a large area of the system to be monitored, the measurement data and the associated information is collected at a central point and processed and analysed with intelligent algorithms which deliver precisely the results that are of interest to the user. Frank Tantzky, the director for Asset Service at Albstadtwerke reports that in the area of Stetten administered by him there was a reduction in network losses of nearly 40% in the first year alone and of nearly 50% in operating costs. Whilst the damage caused by a leak around the distribution network or the house connections will usually remain negligible, the consequences of a failure in a trunk main could affect whole city districts or industrial areas. To be able to detect even the smallest leaks in pipelines of these dimensions over long distances, instead of the accelerometers fixed to the pipe wall from the outside, highly sensitive hydrophones are installed so that their membranes measure the acoustic signal directly in the water.