Abstract

The efficiency of water supply networks is an important issue. In order to reduce water losses, policies of leak reduction are essential. The paper deals with a preliminary study on the use of vibration monitoring tools for the detection of leaks in water service pipelines. The long-term project is the development of a system for automatically detecting burst leaks occurring in service pipes. Preliminary experimental tests were performed on both a test rig and an actual service pipe of the water distribution system. Three main objectives were achieved: firstly, the effectiveness of vibration monitoring for leak detection purposes was assessed providing a positive response; then, a prototypal detection procedure was studied, implemented and tested on the preliminary experimental data; finally, the specifications for a prototypal acquisition equipment were also determined. This paper illustrates the experimental campaign and its main results.