초록 ▼

An apparatus and process for determining the existence and location of a leak in a vessel such as a container or an above ground or underground pipe, comprises a plurality of remote acoustic transmission sensor units distributed along the pipe and each containing equipment for analyzing acoustic sig

An apparatus and process for determining the existence and location of a leak in a vessel such as a container or an above ground or underground pipe, comprises a plurality of remote acoustic transmission sensor units distributed along the pipe and each containing equipment for analyzing acoustic signals from the pipe. The equipment includes a mechanism for identifying acoustic features of the acoustic signals which distinguish the acoustic signals of a leak from ambient acoustic signals. A control unit is connected to each of the remote units and includes additional equipment for further analyzing the signals to determine the proximity of the signal to a particular remote unit and, using the amplitude of the signal and the transmission characteristics of the pipe, determining the location of the leak.

대표청구항 ▼

An apparatus for detecting a leak in a vessel having an acoustic transmission line characteristic, comprising: at least one remote acoustic transducer at a selected location along the vessel, responsive to acoustic energy from the vessel at the selected location, to generate an electric signal in th

An apparatus for detecting a leak in a vessel having an acoustic transmission line characteristic, comprising: at least one remote acoustic transducer at a selected location along the vessel, responsive to acoustic energy from the vessel at the selected location, to generate an electric signal in the transducer; a central processor remotely located from the transducer and containing data about the acoustic transmission line characteristic for the vessel and data describing acoustic features of an acoustic signal generated by a leak in the vessel; the central processor also including program and analysis means and being operatively connected to the transducer, the program means subjecting the electric signal to pattern recognition analysis to determine the presence of the acoustic features in each signal using cepstrum coefficients, the presence of the acoustic features indicating the presence of a leak in the vessel and thus detection of the leak, the program means also using an attenuation of an amplitude of the electric signal containing the acoustic features to locate the leak with respect to the selected location of the transducer using the acoustic transmission line characteristic of the vessel.