The Client
Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
Welsh Water are one of Aqualogic’s key clients, they have a dedicated innovation division committed to harnessing new tech. Dŵr Cymru are responsible for providing over 1.4 million homes, 3 million people with a 828 million litres of high quality water every day and for taking away, treating and properly disposing of the wastewater. Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has over 26,500km of water mains and committed to the highest levels of service and quality.
The Brief
The Future of Leak Detection
Innovators Aqualogic supported by Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water’s iLAB division trialled a new way of detecting leaks on networks using ‘Aquarius’. Aquarius comes in two parts; aQuarius is a Smart 365 Leak Correlation system that can monitor an entire water distribution network and provide complete online leak noise data showing GPS leak location, intensity, history, ongoing statistics at every point of interest (POI). iQuarius mobile leak detection utilises smart phones and turns them into leak noise correlators which allows engineers in the field to accurately pinpoint the precise location of a leak with GPS location and leak noise recording, storing data (noise and location) using cloud technologies.
Delivery
Aqualogic installed 20* aQuarius sensors within a DMZ in South Wales forming a fixed monitoring network covering 5km of mains pipe.
How it works; Once deployed on the network Each sensor ‘couples’ with another sensor when leak noise is detected, then performs a ‘correlation’. Once confidence in the leak has been established, following a sequence of correlations, a GPS location is generated. The results are presented via the cloud to a job system immediately viewable on a PC before being allocated to a pin point detection crew.
The leak can be pinpointed using mobile leak detection iQuarius, utilising an acoustic sensor and a Smartphone App. This data is logged and stored within the job system.
iQuarius can further be used to simply sweep areas allowing for all activity and POI’s to be logged and cloud stored. Leak noises can be reviewed by management or more skilled personnel, allowing for less skilled surveyors when rapid resourcing is required.
*The DMZ now has 10 sensors following optimisation, equivalent of 1 per 500m.
Key Aspects
Results
During the trial 7 Points of Interest (POI) have been identified by the fixed monitoring system aQuarius. Using acoustic profiling the system ranked the highest priority leaks to repair comparing displaying confidence and intensity.
The top ranked POI was then pinpointed using the iQuarius Mobile System, and leak excavated and repaired resulting in a 95% reduction in NRW. The client could then decide to repair or monitor the other leaks, offering massive cost benefits.
Within 3 days the aQuarius system had undertaken multiple night time correlations and created multiple POIs. aQuarius continues to monitor this zone looking for leak intensity changes 365 days per year. This zone had been problematic with NRW not resolved following many years of tradition resource led intervention.
Contact our sales team if you feel that your company and/or customers would benefit from Aquarius Leakage Detection System
