Putting the TLDR at the top here just in case the wall of text below dismays you:
What's a cheap and easy way to inspect and mark the location of leaks in a 5 kilometer long pipe section with no manholes in between?
On to the details:
We have a drainage system at my company which consists of HDPE pipes, 2 foot diameter, buried in the ground. We absolutely cannot have a leak in these pipes. We're talking potential shutdown of the company upon groundwater contamination. Thinking of using cameras in order to inspect for leaks. The longest pipe section that doesn't have any manhole access in between is five kilometers.
I am proposing to have a regular inspection and maintenance of the pipes in order to meet the vision of having no leaks. Once a leak is identified we will dig up only at the section where the leak was identified and patch it up with HDPE welding equipment (Which was also originally used to join the pipe segments). So far I have identified three possible options:
1. Craziest idea is to have a guy crawl into the pipes holding a camera. The guy will be fully covered head to toe. Not so sure if this is safe though. The problem is this will only work in the sections where manhole-to-manhole distance is sufficiently near so as not to endanger the person. There are pipe sections where there is no manhole for five kilometers. I really don't want to have to choose this option.
2. Robot-mounted camera. So far I haven't yet found where this can be bought, but I have seen DIY projects to make one, such as from instructables.com, and also examples of this kind of device on Youtube. I suppose for the five kilometer pipe section the way to go about it would be to have the remote control transmitter be at the manhole at the pipe opening, design the RF transmission to be unidirectional point-to-point between the robot and the transmitter propagating down through the pipe, and make sure that the RF transmission can reach at least 3 kilometers (to inspect the remaining portion, just deploy robot from the other side of the pipe section). Will it also make sense to choose a particular frequency that matches resonance to be optimized propagating down through a 2 foot wide pipe? Also attach a 3 kilometer rope to the robot just in case the RF signal gets lost so that the robot can be manually pulled out by hand.
3. Snake camera endoscope. So far the longest ive found available online has only been 100m in length. It wouldn't be possible to inspect the 5km long pipe section. But this is just a fiber-optic cable correct? And isnt it telecoms companies run kilometer long fiber-optic cables?
Would greatly appreciate anyone's additional ideas and suggestions. Selection criteria for the methodology would be cost, safety, speed, ease of operation, etc but weighted more towards cost and safety.
What's a cheap and easy way to inspect and mark the location of leaks in a 5 kilometer long pipe section with no manholes in between?
On to the details:
We have a drainage system at my company which consists of HDPE pipes, 2 foot diameter, buried in the ground. We absolutely cannot have a leak in these pipes. We're talking potential shutdown of the company upon groundwater contamination. Thinking of using cameras in order to inspect for leaks. The longest pipe section that doesn't have any manhole access in between is five kilometers.
I am proposing to have a regular inspection and maintenance of the pipes in order to meet the vision of having no leaks. Once a leak is identified we will dig up only at the section where the leak was identified and patch it up with HDPE welding equipment (Which was also originally used to join the pipe segments). So far I have identified three possible options:
1. Craziest idea is to have a guy crawl into the pipes holding a camera. The guy will be fully covered head to toe. Not so sure if this is safe though. The problem is this will only work in the sections where manhole-to-manhole distance is sufficiently near so as not to endanger the person. There are pipe sections where there is no manhole for five kilometers. I really don't want to have to choose this option.
2. Robot-mounted camera. So far I haven't yet found where this can be bought, but I have seen DIY projects to make one, such as from instructables.com, and also examples of this kind of device on Youtube. I suppose for the five kilometer pipe section the way to go about it would be to have the remote control transmitter be at the manhole at the pipe opening, design the RF transmission to be unidirectional point-to-point between the robot and the transmitter propagating down through the pipe, and make sure that the RF transmission can reach at least 3 kilometers (to inspect the remaining portion, just deploy robot from the other side of the pipe section). Will it also make sense to choose a particular frequency that matches resonance to be optimized propagating down through a 2 foot wide pipe? Also attach a 3 kilometer rope to the robot just in case the RF signal gets lost so that the robot can be manually pulled out by hand.
3. Snake camera endoscope. So far the longest ive found available online has only been 100m in length. It wouldn't be possible to inspect the 5km long pipe section. But this is just a fiber-optic cable correct? And isnt it telecoms companies run kilometer long fiber-optic cables?
Would greatly appreciate anyone's additional ideas and suggestions. Selection criteria for the methodology would be cost, safety, speed, ease of operation, etc but weighted more towards cost and safety.