A Time Reversal Based Pipeline Leakage Localization Method With the Adjustable Resolution

Due to the diffraction limit, the systems to localize signal sources used to suffer from the low resolution issue, which also occurs in the pipeline leakage localization. For a pressurized pipeline that carries gas, a leakage will generate a negative pressure wave (NPW) that propagates along the pipeline. The NPW can be detected by piezoceramic transducers that are bonded on the surface of the pipeline. Via processing NPW signals, the locations of the leakages can be obtained. However, since the wavelengths of the NPW signals are several meters, the resolution is meter sized. In this paper, a novel pipeline leakage localization method which can adjust the resolution is developed to improve the localization resolution. The proposed method includes a formula to adjust the localization resolution based on the time reversal technique. Via adjusting the parameter of the formula, various localization resolutions can be obtained. We investigated the performance of the proposed method in an experiment with a 55.8 m PVC pipeline equipped with two manually controllable leakage points. With the help of the piezoceramic transducers, the experimental results show that the proposed method can deliver the resolutions which represent a significant improvement, as compared with that of the conventional time reversal localization method. Furthermore, the proposed method can be used for other passive detection.