Application of Inverse methods to reconstruct the form of pulse during impulsive damage to pipelines

Abstract

Petroleum pipelines damages if untimely detected, poses a tremendous challenge to the oil sector of an economy as it causes oil spillage, theft or explosion of the petroleum products while on transit. It is against this backlash an inverse pulse propagation method for reconstructing the form of pulse generated during pipeline defects was devised and presented in this paper. Inverse problem occurs in several branches of science and engineering. It involves the determination of the parameters of a model that describes or explains a set of observed data .This work deals with an inversion technique that was developed to reconstruct the form of a pulse after it has been propagated along a pipe. To test the suitability of the developed technique, a mathematical model was developed. The theoretical model was validated by experiment using a developed pipeline system. The experimental test rig comprises of a flexible hose pipe 23m long and 19mm diameter with four pressure sensors distributed along the pipeline and connected to the data acquisition system. Static and flowing air in the pipeline were use in the experimental test to validate the developed inverse technique model. The inverse method showed a close relationship to the original pulse.