A LEAKING pipeline carrying chemicals or oil can lead to catastrophe unless the hole is quickly detected and repaired. But when pipelines are thousands of kilometres long, problems can be difficult to spot. Now a British engineer says he has the answer, in the form of a super-sensitive optical fibre that can detect and locate spills.
At present, petroleum and chemicals companies usually examine long pipelines visually, from a helicopter or a land vehicle. Chemicals companies are beginning to try out sensors based on electrochemical or semiconductor cells, which detect electrical or temperature changes associated with the presence of a particular substance and trigger an alarm.
But any network of sensors, no matter how extensive, always leaves gaps, and in windy conditions it can be hard to tell which alarm is nearest a gas leak. So Frank Kvasnik of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology has designed ...
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