Application of a leak detection algorithm in a water pipeline prototype: Difficulties and solutions

The main aim of this paper is to comment about the difficulties encountered during the implementation of a well known analytic leak detection algorithm on a short length water pipeline prototype. In addition, the proposed solutions to overcome these difficulties are described. To improve the algorithm, extra filtering to all input signals is added and a freezing-method for the friction coefficient estimation is proposed. Real data are obtained from flow and head pressure sensors installed upstream and downstream of the pipe, then they are supplied to the algorithm. The estimation of the leak size and leak position are presented.