Fiber Bragg grating accelerometer-based nonintrusive flow rate measurements and leak detection

Area of Science:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Sensor Technology
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Flow rate measurement and leak detection are crucial for pipeline integrity.
• Existing methods face challenges with low flow speeds and sensor resolution limitations.
• Turbulent flow generates vibrations that correlate with flow rate, but data scatter is an issue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a nonintrusive, reliable, and convenient method for flow rate measurement and leak detection.
• To overcome the limitations of existing sensors at low flow speeds (<2 m/s).
• To utilize vibration analysis for precise pipeline monitoring.

Main Methods:

• A customized fiber Bragg grating acceleration sensor was designed and implemented.
• Experimental tests were conducted to analyze vibration data at low flow velocities.
• The relationship between vibration data standard deviation and flow rate was modeled using quadratic curve fitting.
• Support vector machine (SVM) classifiers were employed for leak detection using extracted features.

Main Results:

• A quadratic relationship (R² = 0.990) was established between vibration data standard deviation and low flow rates.
• The proposed method demonstrated high accuracy (99.00%) in distinguishing between leak and non-leak states.
• The fiber Bragg grating sensor effectively addressed sensor resolution limits at low flow speeds.

Conclusions:

• The developed fiber Bragg grating sensor offers a highly accurate and reliable solution for low flow rate measurement.
• The vibration-based approach combined with SVM provides an effective nonintrusive leak detection system.
• This technology enhances pipeline monitoring capabilities with improved precision and convenience.