PhD Studentship: Combining Transient and Steady State Methods for Acoustic Leak Detection

Leakage from pipes is a major issue in the water industry, not only in environmental terms, because of wasting an important natural resource, but also in economic and health terms. UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) have identified leakage as one of their strategic priorities and have recently set up the Zero Leakage 2050 initiative, aiming to address the question “How will we achieve zero leakage in a sustainable way by 2050 ?”  

 

Acoustic methods predominate in the armoury of available leak detection methods. However, their effectiveness is restricted for plastic pipes due to the high attenuation of the acoustic signals. These methods may be classified into two categories:  

• Methods based on the detection of the transient signal that occurs during the burst process when the leak first occurs.  
• Methods based on the detection of the continuous steady state signal that occurs after the burst process.  

 

This exciting and innovative project will compare the two methods such that they might ultimately be combined to provide a more powerful approach, thus contributing to UKWIR’s strategic objective. In particular, the following will be investigated  

• Comparison and study of the different spectral energy in the transient signal from bursting leaks with the subsequent steady state signal  
• Sensor deployment for the simultaneous detection of transient and steady state leak signals.  
• Signal Processing methods for the simultaneous detection of transient and steady state leak signals.  

 

The project will be a balance of theoretical and experimental work, with some of the experimental work being undertaken at outdoor test sites in the UK, provided by the industrial partner; it would suit a candidate with both strong signal processing skills and an enthusiasm for experimental measurements. The successful candidate will be working within the Dynamics Group within the ISVR but will also be associated with the Mapping the Underworld programme (www.mappingtheunderworld.ac.uk , http://www.assessingtheunderworld.org) which includes multi-disciplinary researchers from a number of UK universities.  

A full UK driving licence would be useful but not essential.  

 

Funding for this project:  

UK students: Full funding is available

EU students: Full funding may be available or a small top up from the student may be required, depending on the calibre of the student. Funding is competition based and the student must have at least a 2.1 degree or equivalent.

International students: A small amount of funding is available but the student must be largely self-funded. Funding is competition based and the student must have at least a 2.1 degree or equivalent.

For more information on funding eligibility and levels please contact CDT-SIS@southampton.ac.uk

This project is being run in participation with the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Infrastructure Systems (View Website). For details of our 4 Year PhD programme and further projects, please see http://www.cdt-sis.soton.ac.uk/.