Special Issue "Sensors for Fluid Leak Detection"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Gonzalo Pajares Martinsanz
Dpt. Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Informatics, University Complutense of Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
E-Mail: pajares@fdi.ucm.es
Interests: computer vision; image processing; pattern recognition; 3D image reconstruction, spatio-temporal image change detection and track movement; fusion and registering from imaging sensors; superresolution from low-resolution image sensors

Dear Colleagues,

Fluid leak detection is a very old problem, gas or water leaks in aerial pipes or underground pipelines are typical examples. Detection of other fluid leaks has attracted less. This is the case of early oil detection, particularly in underwater sea-lines or other chemical products.

Growing technological development of sensors, for fluid leaks detection, has greater chances of success particularly in early stages. Sometimes, sensors must be installed on multisensory platforms where leak detection is a problem but also the positioning and platform navigation. This is the case of underwater or ground vehicles exploring sea-lines or industrial plants.

This special issue is devoted to sensors devices, materials, technologies and tools for fluid leak detection in different environments such as underwater sea-lines, spillage on the sea surface or ground and aerial pipelines in buildings or industrial plants. Physical and chemical sensors or biosensors are to be considered.

These sensors could also be used as an aid for other purposes such as navigation or positioning of autonomous or remotely operated vehicles (underwater, surface, ground) under the leak detection context.

Prof. Dr. Gonzalo Pajares Martinsanz
Guest Editor

Submission

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Title: GPR-Based Water Leak Models in Water Distribution Systems
Authors: David Ayala-Cabrera ¹, Manuel Herrera ², Joaquín Izquierdo ¹, Silvia J. Ocaña-Levario ¹ and Rafael Pérez-García ¹
Affiliations: ¹ FluIng-IMM, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain; E-Mail: jizquier@upv.es
² BATir, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
Abstract: Water is not only of great value, but also challenging to manage. It has been calculated that many water distribution systems (WDSs) around the world lose more than 40 percent of the clean water pumped into the distribution system because of leaks before that water reaches end consumers. By reducing the amount of water leaked, WDS managers can reduce the amount of money wasted on producing water, consuming energy required to pump water and treating water for distribution, can increase system reliability, and can satisfy consumer needs. Having access to sufficient information regarding leaks is a complex task. Many water utilities struggle to even measure and locate leaks in their distribution networks. So, improved leakage management in WDSs is one of the intelligent solutions that can make a difference. The use of different types of smart sensors to gather data and the application of advanced analytics could provide valuable information on the location of leaks in the network. Specifically, non destructive methods, such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), can contribute to locate primordial leaks, thus to help resolve the problem within an integral strategy, while avoiding social and economical costs. In this work we evaluate the feasibility of implementing one such strategy. The first step includes a series of lab tests to create a suitable database of GPR radargrams. Then, the relevant characteristics are extracted by interpreting those images using various statistical, KDD and multi-agent tools. The final step involves the generation of models that enable intelligent, automatic interpretation and, as a result, leak detection when the models are fed with field radargrams. This tool intends to represent a big opportunity to improve utility performance.

Title: Microseismic Monitoring of CO₂ Injection at the Penn West EOR Pilot, Canada
Authors: P. Martínez-Garzón ¹, M. Bohnhoff ¹, G. Kwiatek ¹, G. Zambrano-Narváez ² and R. Chalaturnyk ^2
1 Department of Geomechanics and Rheology, Telegrafenberg Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany
² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; E-Mail: patricia@gfz-potsdam.de
Abstract: A passive seismic monitoring campaign was carried out in the frame of a CO₂ – EOR pilot project in Alberta, Canada. Our analysis focuses on a two-week period during which prominent downhole pressure fluctuations in the reservoir were accompanied by leakage of CO₂ and CH₄ along the monitoring well that was equipped with an array of short-period borehole geophones. We applied several state of the art seismological processing schemes to the continuous seismic waveform recordings. During the period analysed here we did not find evidence for seismic signatures that can be associated with microseismic events. Instead, we identified signals related to the leakage of CO₂ and CH₄, in that seven out of the eight geophones do show a clear elevated noise level. Our results confirm that microseismic monitoring of reservoir treatment can contribute towards improved reservoir and leakage monitoring.