Field testing of an optimal sensor placement methodology for event detection in an urban water distribution network

This paper presents a method to identify ‘optimal’ locations of pressure sensor instruments for the detection of leak/burst events and the results of a set of field trials conducted to evaluate the approach. The identification method is based on complete enumeration studies using hydraulic model simulations of a wide range of burst events and evaluating the response to each event at all possible monitoring points. The field trials simulated leak/burst events through the opening of fire hydrants within a selected District Metered Area (DMA), five different hydrants were opened systematically in the DMA to simulate different leak/burst events. By installing pressure instrumentation at different locations in the DMA, an understanding of how accurately the model methodology can determine sensitivity of instrument location can be obtained. Prior to and during the hydrant openings pressure data was collected at eight different instrument locations within the DMA. These pressure instruments were installed to cover different model predicted sensitivities and to provide good spatial coverage. The results show that pressure instrumentation location is crucial to sensitivity and that the modelling methodology is able to predict instrument location sensitivity to leak/burst events and thus offer an improvement over current industry practice for instrument deployment. It should be noted that this field application made use of current UK standard models, with no additional calibration or updating.