Intrinsic Distributed Fiber Optic Leak Detection

Monitoring and inspection of pipelines are essential for optimal operation of the energy infrastructure of the nation. However, methods that are currently used for pipeline inspection and diagnostics are typically either slow, do not provide high spatial resolution, suffer from excessive false-alarms, or are not real-time. Development of a system for the real-time monitoring of pipelines to determine leaks should clearly be a high priority. In the proposed program, Prime Research will adapt newly developed fiber optic sensor technology to provide an inherently reliable method to acoustically detect leaks in pipelines with high spatial precision and low false alarm rates in real time. The proposed leak detection system will rely on newly developed advances in intrinsic interferometric fiber optic sensors that will make it more sensitive, cost effective and reliable than existing sensing non-fiber optic methods or other potential fiber optic sensing technologies.