Study Of Oil Pipeline Leak Detection Based On HART Communication

Real-time pipeline leak detection system is an essential technology element forpipelines to safely going into operation. After years of research and practice, domesticleak detection has made considerable development with the emergence of a number ofleak detection technologies. However, In real-time leak detection area, existingtechnical solutions still cannot meet application requirements. The leak detectionsensitivity of the system is a key factor in restricting its performance. It is observedthat the measuring range of field pressure transmitter tend to be greater than fieldpressure range. The larger the measuring range, the smaller the output sensitivity.With the purpose of improving transmitter’s output sensitivity, a HARTcommunication based leak detection technology is proposed, which is the first timeHART being used in leak detection. This technique enables pressure transmitters tomaintain a small range, to adjust its measuring zero-point according to real-timepressure, thus to obtain a high output sensitivity.With HART specifications, the HART communication realization in thisapplication is discussed. Based on team’s original leak detection system, a newsystem is designed, including its hardware design, software design and HARTprotocol converter design.A number of experiments are conducted successively; these are Laboratoryexperiments and simulation leak experiments. Experimental result proves theeffectiveness and feasibility of the HART communication based leak detectionmethod. Trial run test on a domestic pipeline shows the system can run stably with itsability in small pressure change detection boosted. The new system is expected togain better performance in leak detection.