Term 252

Acoustic Shield: Non-Invasive Gas Pipeline Acoustic Leak Detection System

Project Type: Self-Initiated

Project Description

Pinhole leaks in gas pipelines pose critical safety, environmental, and financial risks that conventional pressure and flow monitoring systems fail to detect. This project presents Acoustic Shield, a low-cost, non-invasive acoustic leak detection system designed for continuous real-time monitoring of gas pipelines at critical nodes such as flanges, valves, and weld joints. The system consists of a 3D-printed split-ring clamp collar housing four INMP441 MEMS microphones arranged at 90-degree intervals around a 6-inch steel pipe, a battery-powered ESP32-WROOM-32 microcontroller for wireless acoustic data acquisition, and a signal processing pipeline implementing Variational Mode Decomposition noise suppression and Time-Difference-of-Arrival beamforming for leak localization. Detected events are transmitted wirelessly and displayed on a real-time monitoring dashboard with severity classification and event logging. The prototype was validated on a 2-meter, 6-inch carbon steel test rig under active-flow pinhole leak conditions using a 50-liter air compressor, achieving a localization accuracy of ±20 cm and an average alert response time of 0.4 seconds against a target of under 5 seconds. The system was designed in compliance with SASO and NCEC guidelines and operates without any modification to the pipeline. Acoustic Shield demonstrates a scalable, modular architecture that bridges petroleum engineering operating conditions, mechanical sensor mounting, embedded electrical acquisition, and software-based detection into a single deployable node.