PhD Studentship: ‘Zero Leakage 2050': Leak noise characterisation for buried pipelines

Leakage from pipes is a major issue in both the water and oil industries, being an issue, not only in environmental terms, because of wasting important natural resources, but also in economic and health terms, from both an environmental and cost perspective. Acoustic methods predominate in the armoury of available leak detection methods. However, their effectiveness can be limited by a number of factors, not least of which is the lack of knowledge of the acoustic characteristics of leaks.

Little work on this topic is available in the literature. Some preliminary work has been undertaken at the ISVR which has identified some of the potential mechanisms for leak noise, along with the key parameters on which the noise might depend. However, the effect of the surrounding soil was not included in this work, in which the experiments were conducted on a pipe rig in the laboratory.

Linked to the UK Water Research’s high profile programme ‘Zero Leakage 2050’, the aim of this project is to further the initial work described above through numerical simulations and experiments, both in the laboratory and in the field. Of particular interest is

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 partners; it would suit a candidate with both enthusiasm for experimental measurements and strong analytical skills. The successful candidate will be working within the Dynamics Group within the ISVR but will also be associated with the wider ‘Zero Leakage 2050’ network which includes multi-disciplinary researchers from a number of UK universities as well as a wide range of industrial partners. 

Due to the requirement to travel to UK test sites, a full UK driving licence is required.

 

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: The student must be 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/

To apply, please use the following website: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/postgraduate/research_degrees/apply.page