Single Extended Blockage Identification using a Model-Based Matched-Field Processing Approach

A new transient-based approach for single blockage detection is proposed which requires two measurement stations at both ends of a single pipe system. The method uses the frequency response and gives satisfactory results using low frequency bandwidth. The first advantage of the proposed technique is to obtain the location and length of the blockage independently from the blockage's area. The second advantage is that the method uses information not only from the eigen-frequencies, but also from the whole frequency spectrum. This brings more accuracy especially when the identification of the resonant frequencies and their corresponding mode number are not accurate. Moreover, the method has the ability of tolerating noise as long as it is Gaussian of zero-mean and has a well-known structure. Comparison with other blockage detection methods is given and the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed method are discussed.