Patent ID: 6912472

Claim:
A method of estimating the location of a sudden leak in either a trunk line or locating the junction of a branch line containing a sudden leak in a water feed pipe line network, comprising the steps of: (a) detecting a leak by comparing a measured pressure and previous measured pressure at each sensor location to determine if the amount of pressure difference at any arbitrary sensor exceeds a predetermined value; (b) calculating an upstream fitting curve based on the pressure differences measured by a plurality of sensors, where the amount of pressure difference between the source and the leak gradually increases when measured from a water supply source; (c) calculating a downstream fitting curve based on the pressure differences measured by a plurality of sensors, where the amount of pressure difference between the leak and the end of the trunk line gradually decreases when measured from a water supply source; and (d) estimating the location of the sudden leak in the trunk line or the branch line by calculating a point of intersection of the two fitting curves.