An Approach to Leak Detection in Pipe Networks Using Analysis of Monitored Pressure Values by Support Vector Machine

This paper presents a method of mining the data obtained by a collection of pressure sensors monitoring a pipe network to obtain information about the location and size of leaks in the network. This inverse engineering problem is effected by support vector machines (SVMs) which act as pattern recognisers. In this study the SVMs are trained and tested on data obtained from the EPANET hydraulic modelling system. Performance assessment of the SVM showed that leak size and location are both predicted with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The information obtained from this SVM analysis would be invaluable to water authorities in overcoming the ongoing problem of leak detection.