(599h) Gas Pipeline Leak Detection Using Rigorous Hydraulics and Global Optimization

Gas Pipeline Leak Detection using Rigorous Hydraulics and Global Optimization

Mesude Ozturk, Sung Young Kim and *Miguel Bagajewicz

School of Chemical Engineering and Material Science, University of Oklahoma

100 East Boyd Street, T-335 – Norman, OK 73019-0628 USA

 * corresponding author

Abstract

In this work, we use the Generalized Likelihood Ratio method to detect leaks and biases in pipelines. We assume that in addition to flows, pressures are also measured, so that gas hydraulic equations can be used to improve the power of the test. Instead of using the common gas hydraulics equations (Panhandle, Weymouth, etc), we resort to use a better correlation that we developed.

The GLR method requires solving an optimization problem. Because the gas hydraulic equations are nonlinear, the model has no longer the traditional analytical solutions of linear data reconcilation.   The  nonlinearities and non-convexities arise from bilinear terms corresponding to flow rates, inlet pressures, and outlet pressure in each pipeline segment. Thus, we resort to use our recently developed Bound Contractiong method (Faria and Bagajewicz, AICHE J., 2011). Because of the inclusion of pressure measurements, our leak detection method allows for the determination of the location of the leak in addition to determning its size.