Pipeline Leak Localization Based on FBG Hoop Strain Sensors Combined with BP Neural Network

Pipelines function as blood vessels serving to bring life-necessities, so their safe usage is one of the foremost concerns. In our previous work, a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) hoop strain sensor with enhanced sensitivity was developed to measure the pressure drop induced by pipeline leakage. Some hoop strain information during the leakage transient process can be extracted from the amount of FBG hoop strain sensors set along the pipeline. In this paper, an integrated approach of a back-propagation (BP) neural network and hoop strain measurement is first proposed to locate the leak points of the pipeline. Five hoop strain variations are employed as input neurons to achieve pattern recognition so as to predict the leakage point. The RMS error can be as low as 1.01% when choosing appropriate hidden layer neurons. Furthermore, the influence of noise on the network’s performance is investigated through superimposing Gaussian noise with a different level. The results demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of the neural network for pipeline leakage localization.