Wideband Acoustic Intelligence

Acoustic Leak Detection & Pressurized Valve Health Monitoring

Continuous non-invasive acoustic monitoring (20 Hz – 10 kHz) to identify valve passing, steam trap blow-through, and pressurized control valve bypass to support leak detection and repair (LDAR) workflows.

Chemical Processing Plant and High-Pressure Valve Manifold
PIPELINE & VALVE BENCHMARK • WIDEBAND ACOUSTIC SENSING & MICRO-LEAK DETECTION
Acoustic Physics

Wideband Acoustic Sensing (20 Hz – 10 kHz)

Fluid or gas passing through a cracked valve seat creates turbulent acoustic cavitation and high-frequency stress waves. Wideband acoustic sensors decouple structural pipe vibration (under 1 kHz) from fluid turbulence noise (5 kHz to 10 kHz), identifying internal leakage indicators down to small orifice sizes. (High-frequency sensing above 10 kHz available via dedicated instrumentation).

Target Assets: Isolation valves, control valves, safety relief valves (PSV)
Hardware: Mercury Z1 (Pilot Q1 2027) Inline Sensor • IGFO-AE-100 (Target specs — Q4 2027) Miniature Sensor
Energy Loss Reduction

Steam Trap Blow-Through & Thermal Bypass Detection

Failed open steam traps blow live high-pressure steam directly into condensate returns, squandering significant energy loss annually. Combining surface contact temperature with continuous acoustic RMS allows immediate discrimination between normal cyclic condensate discharge and continuous live steam blow-through.

Assets Monitored: Thermodynamic disc, inverted bucket, and float steam traps
Dual-Sensing: Process Surface Temperature (-40°C to +80°C node / +125°C surface; standoff / waveguide mount above +125°C) + Wideband Acoustic Audio (20 Hz – 10 kHz)
Edge Inference

On-Device TinyML Kurtosis & Energy Bandpass

Acoustic signals are digitized at 25.6 kS/s and processed on an ultra-low-power RISC-V micro-DSP. Fixed-point algorithms compute statistical kurtosis, peak-to-average ratio, and spectral energy within parameterized leak bands. Anomaly scores are computed in <1.8 ms per frame with alerts evaluated every 250 ms without streaming raw audio to the cloud.

Micro-Inference: Fixed-point 4096-pt FFT, Band Energy Ratio, Kurtosis Classifier
Low False-Alarm Design: Band-energy ratio and kurtosis classifier tuned to reject pump pulsation and valve actuation
Plant Interoperability

SCADA & DCS Protocol Integration (Modbus / SPE / OPC UA)

Feeds valve health indices, leak flow severity estimates, and surface temperatures into distributed control systems (DCS) such as DeltaV, Centum, or Experion systems (via gateway). Supports standard RS-485 Modbus RTU, 10BASE-T1L Single Pair Ethernet, and OPC UA (via gateway).

Field Interfaces: RS-485 Modbus RTU, Single Pair Ethernet (SPE), BLE
Compliance: Designed for ATEX / IECEx Zone 1/2 (Ex ia) compliance (certification in progress; do not install in classified hazardous areas until issued), IP67 sealed 316L stainless body

Valve Placement & Acoustic Signal Flow Diagram

Illustrative Application Workflow
1. ASSET: STEAM / GAS VALVE Flow → Internal Seat Micro-Leak High-velocity fluid turbulence acoustics Wideband Acoustic Probe Bandwidth: 20 Hz – 10 kHz • IEPE / MEMS Acoustic Stream Raw Waveforms 2. IGFO-100 EDGE AI Δ 8kHz LEAK PEAK 20Hz 8.2kHz 10kHz • Bandpass: 20Hz–10kHz • Kurtosis: 4.82 (Elevated) • Anomaly Score: 94% • Real-Time Edge DSP OPC UA / Alarm < 8ms Cut-off 3. ACTION / SCADA ALARM DISPATCH Valve V-204 Bypass ✓ PLC Alarm / Cut-off <8ms fast cut-off ✓ SCADA Alarm OPC UA push to DCS ✓ Work Order Automated CMMS dispatch ✓ Asset Health Low false alerts logged Illustrative application workflow • Field verification protocol provided per deployment

What is Measured?

  • 1. Audio Acoustic Bandwidth: Precision acoustic audio sensing from 20 Hz to 10 kHz.
  • 2. Fluid Turbulence Noise: Micro-leakage creates distinct acoustic audio vortex shedding signatures in the 5–10 kHz band.
  • 3. Kurtosis & Energy Envelope: Onboard DSP computes continuous kurtosis and signal energy density (compute time <1.8 ms per frame; alerts evaluated every 250 ms).
  • 4. Operating State Baseline: Machine valve open/closed state is compared to establish true anomalous bypass.

Recommended Sensor Platforms

Both the Mercury Z1 Inline Sensor (Pilot Q1 2027) (clamp/thread mount) and IGFO-100 Edge Node (magnetic probe mount) support 20 Hz – 10 kHz acoustic audio capture with Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) or BLE wireless telemetry.

Inspect Mercury Z1 → Inspect IGFO-100 →

Acoustic Leak Detection Solution Architecture & Specifications

Parameter Specification Engineering Significance
Acoustic Audio Bandwidth 20 Hz – 10 kHz Wideband Transducer Captures turbulent micro-cavitation and gas fissure stress waves
Leak Orifice Detection Sensitive acoustic threshold tuning Detects valve seat erosion indicators early to support planned maintenance
On-Sensor Sampling & DSP 25.6 kS/s ADC • Dual-Core RISC-V SoC Compute time <1.8 ms per frame; alerts evaluated every 250 ms
Operating Temperature -40°C to +80°C (node) / +125°C surface Direct pipe clamp mounting; standoff / waveguide mount above +125°C
Housing Material & Sealing 316L Stainless Steel / IP67 Corrosion resistant to coastal saline mist, sour gas, and steam washdowns
Field Protocol Bridges RS-485 Modbus, SPE (10BASE-T1L), OPC UA (via gateway) Bridges into plant SCADA and enterprise predictive maintenance

Evaluate Acoustic Leak Detection on Your Process Piping

Request an engineering pilot kit with magnetic acoustic clamp fixtures, SPE gateways, and pre-configured valve leak diagnostic models.