Brennan, Michael [UNESP]De Almeida, FabricioJoseph, PhilipDray, SimonWhitfield, Stuart2014-05-272014-05-272013-09-16Key Engineering Materials, v. 569-570, p. 1202-1209.1013-9826http://hdl.handle.net/11449/76570To determine the location of leaks in buried water pipes, acoustic methods are often used. These have proven to be very effective in metallic pipes but have been problematic in modern plastic pipes. In this paper the reason why this is so is discussed together with some measurements that were made on a bespoke test rig built by South Staffs Water plc. A particular problem is the estimate of the wavespeed. Tables are frequently used for this purpose, but these are often inaccurate and this means that a leak cannot be located accurately. An in-situ measure of the wavespeed is thus preferable. In this paper it is shown that there are significant issues in obtaining an accurate estimate of the wavespeed when a leak is present in the system. A method is proposed that overcomes some of these problems, which is discussed and is demonstrated using some data from the bespoke test-rig. © (2013) Trans Tech Publications.1202-1209engBuried plastic pipesLeak detectionWavespeed estimateAcoustic methodLeak locationsMetallic pipesTest rigsWater distribution pipesWater pipesWavespeedDamage detectionPlastic pipeWater pipelinesEstimationTrabalho apresentado em evento10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.569-570.1202WOS:000326409000150Acesso aberto2-s2.0-84883692200