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In the US natural gas transport system, the underground piping includes
approximately 400,000 miles of transmission pipelines and 1.4 million
miles of distribution piping, while above-ground piping is located
mainly at about 750 gas processing plants and some 3000 compressor
stations. These pipelines are often disrupted by leaks. Regulatory
pressure is increasing to inspect transmission lines more frequently.
Remote gas leak survey is a proactive way to prevent unnecessary loss of
human life resulted from natural gas leaks. Since the existing active
detection system is too expensive and passive detection system is less
reliable, we have developed a spectroscopic system that utilizes the
sunlight to detect the methane within 850-950 nm wavelength range. Being
able to detect methane within this range is significant, which makes it
possible to dramatically reduce the system cost associated with an
expensive sensing instrument, an expensive laser device, and complex and
costly system operations. This system utilizes our patented technology
to reliably calculate the spectral absorbance during different time of a
day under various weather conditions. This is achieved by applying a
pattern matching technique using a set of normalized light intensity
profiles estimated from vacuum scanning.
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