Pipeline Impact and Leak Detection
The rapid detection and localization of leaks in oil and gas pipelines is becoming, for most operators, an increasingly important issue regarding safety, environmental, economical, reasons or even regarding media’s impacts.
For pipelines transporting oil, gas or any kind of chemical effluent, leaks should be detected and localized in a short span of time in order to prevent potentially dangerous situations.
To come up to this expectation, Cybernetix Oil & Gas has developed the PIPELIDS, which over leak detection, detects and localize shocks or impacts onto the pipeline (Third party damages detections), an important advantage as something like more than 45% of major incidents are due to third party construction activities close to the pipelines. It is important to mention here that sometimes damage to the pipe does not immediately cause a leak; however, that damage can develop into a leak, or an hazardous situation several years later (Such an incident occurred in Edison, New Jersey).
Principle:
PIPELIDS principle is based on acoustic wave propagation of impacts or leaks source noises inside the pipeline. In the low frequency domain, this propagation can reach very long distances; the waves propagating at effluent sound velocity, detection alarms are available very quickly. Knowing sound velocity, distance between two consecutive sensors, the time detection delay between the two consecutive sensors allows the accurate localization of the leak or impact event, relatively to the sensor location.Based on such a principle, PIPELIDS is a permanent monitoring system for leaks and impacts detection for any kind of transportation pipeline. PIPELIDS is composed of Acoustic Pressure Sensors (hydrophones listening the noises propagating inside the pipeline) dispatched on existing T fittings all along the transportation pipeline. The minimum distances between two consecutive sensors may vary from few kilometers up to 30 kilometers, depending on the characteristics of the conveyed effluent. These hydrophones measure and identify perfectly acoustic signatures induced by eventual impacts or product leakages along the pipeline.
Impacts or leaks alarms are then confirmed and accurately localized through decisional monitoring software (LISA).
PIPELIDS proposed architecture directly depends on pipeline architecture itself. Performances assessment calculations, taking into account pipeline characteristics and effluent composition as well, are performed at the design stage to target system detection sensitivity capabilities.
