Underground Infrastructure - March 2023 - 28

FIRSTLOOK
Gas Distribution Damage Prevention & Safety
Discover Advanced Mobile Leak Detection
Detects Pipeline Gas Leak Immediately
Corinna Hunt | Contributing Editor
The key to discovering and repairing natural
gas leaks before they become catastrophic
is more vigilance, and that's what
Heath Consultants is striving to achieve
with its new Discover Advanced Mobile
Leak Detection (AMLD) system.
The new vehicle-mounted device uses
tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy,
with resolution in parts per billion,
and two lasers - one tuned for methane,
which comprises the majority of natural
gas, and one tuned for ethane.
" By having a methane and an ethane
laser, we can differentiate pipeline gas,
which has ethane in it, from non-pipeline
gas being sewer, swamp, soil and marsh, "
said Paul Wehnert, Heath's executive vice
president and chief marketing officer.
" Because it can see in parts per billion, it
has the ability to reach out quite a distance
from the road, up to houses on both sides
of the road, to detect potential gas leaks. "
Heath's Discover AMLD incorporates
the detector, mounted to the front of the
vehicle, along with an anemometer to
look at wind direction and GPS to look
at latitude and longitude, both mounted
on the roof. All equipment is designed
to require minimal vehicle modifications
and be " ruggedized " to withstand the elements,
Wehnert added.
Natural gas detection happens immediately
with Heath's open-path laser technology.
Other vehicle-mounted systems,
typically pump-drawn, pull a sample of
air through the front of the vehicle to an
analyzer usually at the rear.
" You get a lot of dilution because
you're pulling a lot of air mixing in with
gas, " he said. " Then you also get the delayed
time: if you're traveling down the
road at 30 mph, it takes several seconds
for the gas to be drawn into the vehicle,
into the analyzer and then analyzed, and
you're already quite a ways down the road
when you detect gas. "
In contrast, Discover AMLD's open laser
on the front of the vehicle means that
The new Discover Advanced Mobile Leak Detection laser system is designed to be mounted to the
front of a vehicle with minimal modifications necessary. (Photo courtesy of Heath Consultants Inc.)
28 MARCH 2023 | UndergroundInfrastructure.com
when it reaches a plume of natural gas, it
responds - without any dilution or delay.
Additionally, because one laser measures
specifically for ethane, detection
of pipeline gas is more accurate, with
less false positives from natural methane
sources, such as sewer or swamp gas.
It took a number of years to develop
the parts-per-billion sensitivity to add the
ethane detection capability, which is not
in Heath's TDLAS handheld units. The
company's second generation of handheld
devices, released a few years ago, detect
just methane in parts per million, and was
the precursor to this latest technology.
" The idea with this device, because of
the low-level sensitivity and smartness
of the software platform, is utilities can
now drive basically all the city streets and
based on wind direction, and learn how
much of their assets were covered by that
vehicle driving down the street, " Wehnert
explained.
" It also tells if there were some pipes
that were just too far away from where
the vehicle was, so it doesn't feel it had a
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Underground Infrastructure - March 2023

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