Detecting leaks
3 Oct 2003
US-based Physical Sciences' prototype leak detector recently demonstrated its ability to spot natural gas leaks from a distance of up to 30 feet from a vehicle moving at speeds approaching 20 miles per hour at the company's facility in Andover, MA.
In the US, significant resources are devoted annually to leak inspection of natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines. Leakage surveys are critical to maintaining the integrity and safety of pipelines and gas distribution systems, and gas utility companies are actively seeking remote detection technology to improve the efficiency and reduce maintenance costs of leak detection.
The PSI device, about the size of a bread box, can be mounted on top of a vehicle. In use, it uses a scanning laser beam on the roadway in front of the vehicle to detect leaking gas.
That's an improvement upon current technology which requires that an optical methane detector mounted to a service vehicle be driven through a natural gas leak to detect it. This, however, can become troublesome if the leak occurs in a residential neighbourhood next to a customer's home and away from the street.
The prototype detector itself was developed through the Office of Fossil Energy's Infrastructure Reliability program, part of the Strategic Center for Natural Gas at the US National Energy Technology Laboratory.
Further work will concentrate on mounting the detector on a utility service vehicle and demonstrating the mobile detection of natural gas leaks from an operating distribution pipeline.
The project cost $195,244, with the US DOE sharing $156,190 of the total.
