Optimal Measurement Site Locations for Inverse Transient Analysis in Pipe Networks

The quality of leak detection and quantification and calibration for friction coefficients in pipelines and networks by the inverse transient method are dependent on the quantity and location of data measurement sites. This paper presents an approach for determining the configuration of measurement sites that produces optimal results. Three performance indicators, two that are based on A- and D-optimality criteria and one that is based on the sensitivities of the heads with respect to the parameters, show which configurations are superior. These are illustrated by two case studies, the first of which is a small pipe network in which all configurations are considered directly (fully enumerable) and the second is a larger pipe network in which statistics are drawn from a sampling of configurations. For the large network, a genetic algorithm, with a new crossover operator, performs a search of possible measurement site configurations to determine the optimal measurement locations. The number of sites as well as time length of data at each site are also considered.