Pipeline leak detection by ...
Published by Arnold Liu, CEO & Scientific Director at Quantum Dynamics, Inc.
Pipeline leak detection by mass / standard volume balance is the only truly rigorous method, but is currently virtually impossible due to very lax measurement practices. In high value petrochemical applications, it has proven to be of utility.
In nominally incompressible flows, the computationally lowest detectable leak will be approximately 2.5*(calibration uncertainty + meter repeatability). Once leakage loss is detected, the location is approximated via downstream-upstream pressure drop convergence techniques.