For solving the difficult problem of leakage detection in city gas pipelines, a method using acoustic technique based on instantaneous energy (IE) distribution and correlation analysis was proposed. Firstly, the basic theory of leakage detection and location was introduced. Then the physical relationship between instantaneous energy and structural state variation of a system was analyzed theoretically. With HILBERT-HUANG transformation (HHT), the instantaneous energy distribution feature of an unstable acoustic signal was obtained. According to the relative contribution method of the instantaneous energy, the noise in signal was eliminated effectively. Furthermore, in order to judge the leakage, the typical characteristic of the instantaneous energy of signal in the input and output end was discussed using correlative analysis. A number of experiments were carried out to classify the leakage from normal operations, and the results show that the leakages are successfully detected and the average recognition rate reaches 93.3% among three group samples. It is shown that the method using acoustic technique with IED and correlative analysis is effective and it may be referred in other pipelines.
