Discontinuity Resolver (03 September 2024)

At some point it came to my attention that a cardinal challenge with drip irrigation is that mud clogs may accumulate in the pipes if the pipes’ pores are in contact with the ground. Evidently this would stifle the pipes. Now, isolating the location of clogs in lengthy pipe networks is a tall order. 

So I ruminated on how we could design irrigation pipes that would be rigged with instrumentation for this purpose. Using light could seem a natural avenue for one’s wit to take in such an undertaking since this is how we ourselves see. Accordingly, I imagined concentrated light beams, laser perhaps, being reflected off the lining of a pipe, as they propagate along it, in a way that could locate any clogs. 

It occurred to me that this solution was just the thin end of the wedge. The remedy I’d come up with could also be used in conduits of fluids in other contexts such as natural gas pipelines. In these the discontinuity could be caused by perforations conceivably factitious as in vandalism. With concerns in the latter, instantaneous notification of the event and a precise report as to the locale of the complication would be desirable. I’ve tentatively described the solution I propose below as a “discontinuity resolver” and we’ll designate it “Inspector” for purposes of this discussion.

My suggestion is such that at one end of a pipe; “Pipe 1” and “Pipe 1-A” in Fig. 1, laser sources discharge their beams at an angle that allows the light to be propagated in the fashion shown in the diagram where the light is reflected off nodes that also detect it by means of a sensor such as a photo-diode embedded in them. Each sensor node would also be capable of wireless communication. Having two light sources or more per stretch of a pipe as shown will probably enable a greater part of the pipe's surface to be monitored as the diagram may suggest. In Fig. 1 the sources and their beams are distinguished by black and red colours. 

Fig. 1 Discontinuity Resolver

A discontinuity in the pipe which may be a perforation in a gas pipeline or a mud clog in an irrigation pipe can then be detected when a sensor doesn't receive the light beam such as with S_aft in Pipe 1-A in the scenario depicted in Fig. 1. In that event S_aft will then send a message wirelessly to it’s nearest relay node in the sensor network for transmission to Inspector’s control unit. Depending on the expanse of the network multiple hops may be needed in the transmission of the message. The message should obviously carry S_aft’s identity.  Having received the message Inspector will invoke a verification beam (shown green coloured in Fig. 1) from a source, S_1ARDT, at the termination of that pipe to verify if there is indeed a discontinuity. Should that be the case S_aft will receive the beam but S_bef will not. In that case Inspector will report the event as a confirmed detection of a discontinuity. If, on the other hand, S_bef does show to have received the verification beam then this may indicate a false alarm possibly due to a fault in the sensors and this too should be reported by Inspector to the user.

A principal issue to address is that of electrical energy provision to the sensors and light sources. I would propose using thermoelectricity to harvest solar heat incident on the pipes. This way vandals, say, to gas pipelines can’t compromise the energy supply to Inspector's sensor network before the vandals' tampering is detected.

To make this contrivance inexpensive or even workable would obviously require a bit of miniaturisation of sensors and communication hardware. With current advance in sectors such as nanotechnology I’m optimistic this is possible.