Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?

Several millions of kilometres of pipes and cables are buried beneath our streets in the UK. As they are not visible and easily accessible, the monitoring of their integrity as well as the quality of their contents is a challenge. Any information of these properties aids the utility owners in their...

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Main Authors:	Metje, Nicole, Chapman, David N., Cheneler, David, Ward, Michael, Thomas, Andrew M.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 2011
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231726/

id	pubmed-3231726
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-32317262011-12-07 Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality? Metje, Nicole Chapman, David N. Cheneler, David Ward, Michael Thomas, Andrew M. Article Several millions of kilometres of pipes and cables are buried beneath our streets in the UK. As they are not visible and easily accessible, the monitoring of their integrity as well as the quality of their contents is a challenge. Any information of these properties aids the utility owners in their planning and management of their maintenance regime. Traditionally, expensive and very localised sensors are used to provide irregular measurements of these properties. In order to have a complete picture of the utility network, cheaper sensors need to be investigated which would allow large numbers of small sensors to be incorporated into (or near to) the pipe leading to so-called smart pipes. This paper focuses on a novel trial where a short section of a prototype smart pipe was buried using mainly off-the-shelf sensors and communication elements. The challenges of such a burial are presented together with the limitations of the sensor system. Results from the sensors were obtained during and after burial indicating that off-the-shelf sensors can be used in a smart pipes system although further refinements are necessary in order to miniaturise these sensors. The key challenges identified were the powering of these sensors and the communication of the data to the operator using a range of different methods. Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 2011-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC3231726/ /pubmed/22164027 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s110807455 Text en © 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Metje, Nicole Chapman, David N. Cheneler, David Ward, Michael Thomas, Andrew M.
spellingShingle	Metje, Nicole Chapman, David N. Cheneler, David Ward, Michael Thomas, Andrew M. Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
author_facet	Metje, Nicole Chapman, David N. Cheneler, David Ward, Michael Thomas, Andrew M.
author_sort	Metje, Nicole
title	Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
title_short	Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
title_full	Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
title_fullStr	Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
title_full_unstemmed	Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?
title_sort	smart pipes—instrumented water pipes, can this be made a reality?
description	Several millions of kilometres of pipes and cables are buried beneath our streets in the UK. As they are not visible and easily accessible, the monitoring of their integrity as well as the quality of their contents is a challenge. Any information of these properties aids the utility owners in their planning and management of their maintenance regime. Traditionally, expensive and very localised sensors are used to provide irregular measurements of these properties. In order to have a complete picture of the utility network, cheaper sensors need to be investigated which would allow large numbers of small sensors to be incorporated into (or near to) the pipe leading to so-called smart pipes. This paper focuses on a novel trial where a short section of a prototype smart pipe was buried using mainly off-the-shelf sensors and communication elements. The challenges of such a burial are presented together with the limitations of the sensor system. Results from the sensors were obtained during and after burial indicating that off-the-shelf sensors can be used in a smart pipes system although further refinements are necessary in order to miniaturise these sensors. The key challenges identified were the powering of these sensors and the communication of the data to the operator using a range of different methods.
publisher	Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
publishDate	2011
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231726/
_version_	1611492331327848448

Smart Pipes—Instrumented Water Pipes, Can This Be Made a Reality?

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