An Adaptive Grid Generation Approach to Pipeline Leakage Rapid Localization Based on Time Reversal

Gas pipeline leakage will result in casualties and property losses if not detected in time. Conventional leakage localization methods usually rely on dense grid distribution, leading to high computational costs. This study proposes a time-reversal-based adaptive grid generation approach to enhance computational efficiency in pipeline leakage localization. The method introduces a resolution adjustment parameter to optimize captured signals, allowing for adaptive grid concentration in leakage areas based on energy distribution. Based on this principle, three steps-including signal adjustment computation, adaptive grid generation computation, and conventional TR localization computation based on the adaptive grids-are introduced. Then, an experimental study is conducted on a 55.8 m PVC pipeline with piezoceramic transducers, capturing negative pressure wave signals from four leakage points. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach maintains comparable localization accuracy while reducing the number of grids and localization time to only 0.6% and 2.4% of those required by conventional uniform grid methods, respectively. The findings demonstrate that the proposed method offers a computationally efficient and accurate solution for real-time pipeline leakage monitoring.