Low-Cost, Tiny-Sized MEMS Hydrophone Sensor for Water Pipeline Leak Detection

In this paper, we present an experimental investigation of a water pipeline leak detection system based on a low-cost, tiny-sized hydrophone sensor fabricated using the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technologies. A 10 × 10 element arrayed MEMS hydrophone device with chip size of 3.5 × 3.5 mm
²
was used in the experiment. The hydrophone device is packaged with a customized on-board preamplification circuit using an acoustic transparent material. The overall package size of the MEMS hydrophone is Φ1.2 × 2.5 cm. The packaged MEMS hydrophone achieves an acoustic sensitivity of -180 dB (re: 1 V/μPa), a bandwidth from 10 Hz to 8 kHz, and a noise resolution of around 60 dB (re: 1 μPa/√Hz) at 1 kHz. A section of ductile iron water pipeline with an internal diameter of 10 cm, wall thickness of 0.73 cm, and length of 30 m is constructed as the test bed for the water leak detection. Two different leak sizes with leak flow rates of about 30 and 180 L/min are designed along the pipe, which is pressurized at 3.2 bar. Analysis of the transient signals and spectrograms shows that the MEMS hydrophone can capture the key acoustic information of the water leak, i.e., identifying the leak and locating the leak position. The measurement results demonstrate the feasibility to construct an affordable, highly efficient, real-time, and permanent in-pipe pipeline health monitoring network based on the MEMS hydrophones due to their high performance, low cost, and tiny size.