Multi-leak estimator for pipelines based on an orthogonal collocation model

The orthogonal collocation method (OCM) is used to obtain an approximate solution of the water hammer equations which represent one-phase water flow transients in pipeline systems. The OCM provides solutions over the entire spatial domain, therefore it can be used to obtain an accurate model with possible leaks spatially distributed. An estimator can be designed based on the spatially-discretized model in order to detect multiple leaks by identifying their positions and leak coefficients.