Leak detection in water collection and transmission networks using minimum nodal pressure measurement

Leak has always been one of the problems in water distribution networks, whose preventing not only results in saving of water sources, but also has profound effects on maintenance cost of networks. In present paper, a new method is applied for leak detection in water collection and transmission network. In this method, detection of leak location is performed by pressure difference analysis at junctions and by the help of relative index of leak. In this regard, at least two nodes have to be selected for pressure measurement within the network, in order to monitor the pressure changes in with and without leak cases. The investigated network in this research includes 7 wells with approximate length of 7800 m located in North Western city of Mashhad. A real leak with a rate of 7.57 l/s is created at one of the network nodes whose amount is measurable by a volume counter. Finally, this leak is identified by the proposed method via 3 nodal pressure measurements