Enhancement of leak detection in pipelines through time-domain reflectometry/ground penetrating radar measurements

The authors have recently developed a time-domain reflectometry (TDR)-based leak-localisation system which, being based on an electromagnetic technique, overcomes the well-known downsides (sensitivity to environmental noise, to pipe material and geometry etc.) of traditional, electro-acoustic leak-localisation techniques. Starting from the positive results obtained so far, in this work, the authors investigate the possibility of implementing an integrated TDR/ground penetrating radar (TDR/GPR) approach. The TDR would allow the preliminary leak localisation, while the GPR technique would be used to have a countercheck for possible false positives. Also, GPR would allow to assess the quantity of the leaked water (thus scheduling a priority order for repair) and to obtain a three-dimensional view of the subsurface soil around the pipes, so as to assess their health status. In this work, the combined TDR/GPR approach is tested on a pipe section in the presence of two leaks. In addition to this, in this study, also a different configuration of the TDR sensing element (SE) is experimented. As described in what follows, this new SE configuration is expected to expedite considerably the implementation and the use of the TDR-based leak detection system.