Synapse Group
Hydraulic monitoring and leak detection
Find a leak before the field does.
High-frequency pressure, mass balance and transient detection on pumping lines, water and slurry pipelines, with the hydraulic model tuned on that line's own history.
Get in touchWhen it shows up
If this is happening, this is the problem.
The leak is found when somebody sees it in the field, or when the monthly balance does not add up.
There are flow meters at both ends, but nobody systematically compares inflow against outflow.
Water hammer is suspected and never recorded, and ruptures keep repeating on the same stretches.
The pumping station is run on discharge pressure and nobody knows whether the pump is off its point.
How we approach it
What gets installed and how detection works.
- 01
What gets measured
High-frequency pressure and flow at both ends of the stretch, plus temperature, vibration and current at pumping stations. On critical stretches, acoustics or distributed fibre are added.
- 02
Balance and model
Mass balance between ends to bound the lost volume, and a hydraulic model of the line that says how pressure should behave under normal regime.
- 03
How it is located
A leak is recognised against that line's normal behaviour, not against a generic threshold. Transient detection additionally bounds the approximate position of the event through wave propagation time.
- 04
What happens with the notice
An alert with severity and probable stretch, prioritised field inspection and, where there is control, pressure adjustment or a stop before the rupture grows.
Where it applies
The industries where this problem weighs most.
The same work changes scale and standard by front, not nature. These are the pages with the context for each one.
What it is measured against
The indicators are set before anything is installed.
A pilot without a baseline is no basis for a scale-up decision. These are the indicators the work is designed against, measured before starting so there is something to compare with.
- Unaccounted-for volume
- Difference between what enters and what leaves the stretch, sustained over time rather than measured on an odd day.
- Detection time
- How long passes between the condition appearing and the system raising it.
- kWh per m³ pumped
- Energy per cubic metre at each station, which reveals a pump running off its best efficiency point.
- Transient events per period
- Recorded water hammer, which is what connects operating practice to ruptures that keep repeating.
Frequently asked
What we get asked before the first meeting.
How is a leak detected in a water or slurry pipeline?
With high-frequency pressure and flow at both ends, mass balance and transient detection over a hydraulic model of the line. The model is tuned on the pipeline's own history: a leak signature is recognised against the normal behaviour of that line, with its profile, roughness and operating regime.
Can you tell where the leak is, not just that it exists?
You can bound it. The pressure wave the event generates reaches the instruments at each end with a time difference that depends on propagation speed in that line, and that allows the position to be estimated. Accuracy improves with more intermediate measurement points.
Is fibre optic required?
Not to start. Distributed fibre gives spatial resolution that pressure and flow cannot reach, and makes sense on critical or high-consequence stretches. In most cases you start with conventional hydraulic instrumentation and evaluate fibre on the evidence of the first period.
Does it apply to agricultural pumping and not only mining?
Yes. The physics is the same and so is the digital stack: scale, standard and criticality are what change. A well with a long delivery line has the same balance and off-point operation problem as a mine site station.
Contact
Let's talk.
If you have an operational challenge, an innovation project in mind or a question about applying technology to your industry, get in touch.
proyectos@synapsegroup.techWe reply within 48 business hours.