Microphone array analysis of the first non-axisymmetric mode for the detection of pipe conditions

This paper reports on the use of a circular microphone array to analyze the reflections from a pipe defect with enhanced resolution. A Bayesian maximum a posteriori algorithm is combined with the mode decomposition approach to localize pipe defects with six or fewer microphones. Unlike all previous acoustic reflectometry techniques, which only estimate the location of a pipe defect along the pipe, the proposed method uses the phase information about the wave propagated in the form of the first non-axisymmetric mode to estimate its circumferential position as well as axial location. The method is validated against data obtained from a laboratory measurement in a 150 mm diameter polyvinyl chloride pipe with a 20% in-pipe blockage and 100 mm lateral connection. The accuracy of localization of the lateral connection and blockage attained in this measurement was better than 2% of the axial sensing distance and 9° error in terms of the circumferential position. The practical significance of this approach is that it can be implemented remotely on an autonomous inspection robot so that accurate axial location and circumferential position of lateral connections and small blockages can be estimated with a computationally efficient algorithm.