LEAK DETECTION TECHNOLOGY

Simply Leak Detection specializes in locating leaks in residential and

commercial plumbing systems (inside or outside) and providing
repair to them without much destruction to your residential areas
or locality

Usually leak detection involves following steps to overcome leak

detection problems:
• Water Leak Detection
• Private Utility Locating
• Plastic Pipe Locating
• Electrical Ground Fault Locating

Simply Leak Detection is highly equipped to locate any water pipe

leak on your property….from floors, foundations, slab leaks,
underground service lines…to anywhere in the yard.
Have you priced a gallon(=4.546092litre) of hydraulic fluid lately? Now think
of a leak that wastes six drops of fluid per minute. That's more than 40
gallons a year in needless replacement costs. Leaks can also cause safety
issues, ruin equipment and knock you off schedule. It's worth the time and
effort to find those leaks and deal with them.
Types of leak:
1. Real leak
2. Virtual leak
3. Permeation leak
Real leak:
When we think of fluid leaks, we usually picture a real leak caused by
cracks, gaps between sealing surfaces, or permeation through seal
materials. Basically, this category covers any time a pressure barrier fails
to contain or isolate a system fluid from the surrounding environment.
Virtual leak:
But a system also can have virtual leaks, which
release internally trapped fluid into a fluid system due
to material outgassing (escape of gas from a material
under test in a vacuum), absorbed or adsorbed fluids,
Real leak
entrapment in cracks.

Permeation leak:
There's also permeation, the passage of fluid into,
through, and out of a pressure barrier having no holes Virtual leak
large enough to permit more than a small fraction of
the molecules to pass through any one hole.

Permeation leak
Outgassing :-
Outgassing is the spontaneous evolution of gas from solid or liquid,
Gas molecules dissolved in the bulk of materials are also a source of gas. They diffuse
towards the surfaces and are then released.

Polymers dissolve a significant quantity of molecules, in particular H2O. Metals can

dissolve only limited quantities of small atoms that, at room temperature, are immobile
in the lattice, except for hydrogen.
Over time, PVC releases volatile organic compounds (VOC) into
the air. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, this
release, or outgassing, is suspected as a cause of health problems
ranging from eye, nose and throat irritations to nausea, fatigue,
dizziness and memory impairments, among others.

In one day, H atoms travel in average 4 mm in austenitic stainless

steels, while O atoms travel the same distance in 1000 years.
Therefore, amongst the dissolved elements in the bulk of metals, https://csflorida.swagelok.com
only H2 is released at room temperature.

For comparison, in one day, H2O molecules move along about 20

mm in PEEK, a high-performance polymer.
You may have water leak problem if:-

• You hear water running and everything in the house is

turned off.
•If your water meter is turning and everything in the
house is turned off.
• If your water bill is higher than usual.
• If you notice your well pump running excessively.

Ground waterleak detection problem:

Hidden Water Line

This leak was accurately located on an 1100 foot water

line under a driveway. The red markings represent a
power line that is also burried in the same trench as the
water service
Commercial Leak Detection Services

Usually used in offices,commercial sites etc.

In this technic utilize helium an inert gas which they induce into
the lines in order to pin-point where the leak is coming from,
which many companies are just now beginning to utilize. This
enables us the ability to detect many hard to find leaks such as
those in pipes running under concrete or asphalt, which is
typically what we deal with a lot on commercial job sites.

Small But Costly www.simplyleakdetection.bi

There was a leaking plastic water line under this road, through a
parking lot feeding a marina at the Port of Cascade Locks. Though
this was a relatively small leak (though costly in water use), it was
accurately located for a simple repair using Helium tracer gas
methods after the pipe was initially located using sonic locating
methods

www.simplyleakdetection.biz
Sonic leak detection technology:

The Sonic Leak Detector is a low cost instrument that

allows the rapid detection of pressurised gases escaping
from any form of plant system.

The ultrasound "noise" generated from any gas e.g.

compressed air, steam, refrigerant or vacuum, bad
bearings and electrical arcing can be easily detected.

The leak location rapidly and accurately identified

through the headphones.

The Sonic Leak Detector can significantly reduce leak

detection times and produce substantial cost savings.
Electronic Helium tracer-gas detection systems
The MGD-2002 Multi-Gas leak detector
This is the same equipment choice used to monitor and
correct Helium leaks on the Goodyear Blimp during routine
maintenance inspections!

• How does it work in water leak detection?

Helium gas is inserted into the pipe line in search of the

source of the leak. The gas can escape any small crack or
exit at any break.
Leak detected at the surface so the source is then easily
pin-pointed for repair.

Helium is a safe, light, odorless, colorless, inert, non toxic,

non flammable monatomic gas.
Sonic non-metallic pipe location

As plastic pipes are not electrically conductive, they

cannot be located with the classic electro-
magnetical method.

Another principle in pipe location is used with the

acoustic method: the pipes transmit mechanical
vibrations better than the surrounding soil. The
vibrations are transmitted along the pipe and over
the soil to the surface where they can be detected
by a microphone. ntensity the position of the pipe.
Basically AC or metallic pipes can also be located
with this method
Acoustics leak detection technology:
Detecting leaks using acoustic signals is possible
because an acoustic signal is created when gases or
liquids flow through a crack or hole in the pipeline.
Acoustic sensors are installed outside of the pipeline
to detect leaks by measuring the noise levels at
multiple sites along the pipeline. This information is Acoustic leak detector
used to create a noise profile of the pipeline.
Deviations from the baseline noise profile that is
created results in the leak alarm. Acoustic sensors can
be mounted directly to the pipeline. To monitor
longer pipelines, a large number of acoustic sensors
are needed. Small leaks whose acoustic signal is small
and only differ slightly from the background noise
cannot be detected as otherwise there would be
many false alarms.
Video monitoring of pipelines is designed for short distances.

Liquid leaks can be detected using infrared cameras as the thermal conductivity
in wet ground is different than in dry ground.

For its use as a continuous leak detection method, however, it’s important to
note whether the leak detection occurs automatically or whether monitoring by
personnel is necessary.

Leaks are responsible for increasing energy in pipes by increasing water consumptions
rate and leads to contamination of water.
It also damages road and endanger the foundation of building(Price and Reed 1989).

In 2016 ,19.8% of water was wasted due to leakage in water pipe network and
branches in Sao Paulo in comparison with the 16% of UK(SABESP,2016).
To determine the location of crack acoustic correlation method uses:
a) Delay time of the arrival of the leak noise at the sensor.

b) Knowledge of speed at which the noise propagates.

Distance of the leak from

one of the sensor position
can be located.

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljwiCHRW0-8
Piezoelectric accelerometers with a sensitivity of 100 mV/g were mounted with
glue at the access points and used for vibration measurements.
The signals from the sensors were transmitted through cables of approximately 20
m length to the data acquisition system model LMS SCADA XS.
Leak signals were collected simultaneously for 2 minutes with a sampling
frequency of 8192 Hz.

Moreover, three conditions were measured.

I. The first was the background noise only.
II. The second was the vibration pump noise
when the pipeline is pressurized
III. and the third was the data when leak is
simulated (leak noise data).

Source: Fuji teco inc.

 Moreover, three conditions were
measured.
I. The first was the background noise only.
II. The second was the vibration pump
noise when the pipeline is pressurized
III. and the third was the data when leak is
simulated (leak noise data).

Vibroacoustic characteristics of leak signals in a typical buried water pipe under

controlled condition provides the presence of external effects as pump and
background noise in the measured data.
In addition to this, it has been shown that an appropriate selection of the
bandwidth over which the signal is filtered is
useful to reduce external effects due to background noise and so one, and to obtain
the time delay of the signal.