Siemens technology to pinpoint water pipe leaks

Erlangen, Germany – Siemens Corporate Technologies and Siemens Industry Solutions Division have jointly developed a method of finding and continuously monitoring leaks in water pipes. The Siwa LeakControl technology employs flow measurements and special software, and is designed to be used with all sizes and types of pipes.

Companies operating and planning the maintenance of drinking water networks generally check for leaks by monitoring the volume of water losses. There is a wide variety of ways of doing this, but they are generally only applied at selected points.

For example, some are based on the evaluation of noise levels emanating from leaks in the networks of water pipes. This investigation is performed either at regular intervals, such as annually, or only when leaks are suspected. However, such a procedure makes it difficult to detect a suspected leak immediately.

According to Siemens, its Siwa LeakControl location and monitoring system continuously checks for leaks, and also pinpoints them automatically. This is done by setting up district metering areas, in which the inflows and outflows of water are measured by ultrasonic flow meters. Existing measuring systems, such as magnetic inductive flow meters, can also be integrated.

Measurements are passed to an evaluation system, which detects leaks and allocates them to the individual zones by statistical methods and a model-based, network-wide mass balance. The suspected leaks are then found by temporarily installed acoustic sensors, and finally pinpointed down to the exact meter by correlators.