The development of a "system for analyzing hydraulic connections" is the goal of a research project in which the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen is collaborating with two medium-sized companies. The project leader at THM is Dr. Hans-Martin Seipp, Professor of Building Services Engineering at the Giessen Department of Life Science Engineering. Partners are Erb Messtechnik from Frankfurt and Schmidt Präzisionstechnik from Schwarza, Thuringia. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is funding the project with more than €460,000.
Faulty connections in complex drinking water networks pose health risks, among other things. In hospitals, there have been repeated instances of infectious agents migrating from the cold water system to the hot water system because the two systems were not properly separated. Nursing homes, chemical plants, and hotels are also susceptible to faulty installations during construction or repairs. Limescale deposits and corrosion after prolonged use can also lead to problems.
Currently, there are two methods for checking for faulty connections. The dye test involves dyeing the cold water and checking for traces of the dye in the hot water. The overflow test involves shutting off the hot water line to a building and then checking whether hot water continues to flow out, potentially overflowing from the cold water supply. Both methods are complex, time-consuming, and expensive because the normal operation of the systems must be interrupted for several hours or days, and locating the fault requires further investigation.
THM and its partners are developing a completely new solution for detecting faulty connections. An "impulse emission unit" is connected to the pipe network under test. This unit generates pressure pulses in a characteristic temporal sequence within the cold water network. Pressure probes installed in both the cold and hot water networks can identify the pressure signal pattern generated by these pulses. If identical patterns appear simultaneously in both networks, a faulty connection has been confirmed. With this new method, the test takes only about ten minutes. Further measurements can then be used to pinpoint the location of the faulty connection.
Due to its significant advantages over the current state of the art, the project partners see good chances of establishing the new method as a standard procedure. It can be used directly during the acceptance testing of installations, but also for assessments in the event of damage. Even in existing pipeline networks with bacterial or chemical contamination, expert assessors can quickly and reliably evaluate the causes.
The research project has a duration of two years. It is funded as part of the "Central Innovation Programme for SMEs".