Determination of leakage in an oil and gas pipeline

Abstract

Leaking pipes for oil and gas channel is a situation that can lead to a large problems. Among them, a massive explosion which could result in property damage, death or injury and thus involve high costs for repairing activities. Therefore, the first step in identifying any leaks is very important. This has implications on the development of a mathematical model to identify the leakage of pipelines for oil and gas. This dissertation will focus on determining the position and size of leaks in oil and gas pipelines in various circumstances, especially when operating on a pipe in a partially shut down condition. By using an observer in the production system model, simulation will be performed. Finite difference method used to solve the equations of the model next in the simulation will be made using MATLAB software. The graph resulting from these simulations will be read and discussed. The results of the simulations carried out with time varying boundary conditions, show that the observer is able to detect leaks in cases such as shut down and with sinusoidal varying boundary conditions.