In this paper the results of an experimental validation of a technique for leak detection in polymeric pipes based on the Inverse Transient Analysis (ITA) are presented. In the proposed ITA the Nelder-Mead algorithm is used as a calibration tool. Experimental tests have been carried out in an intact and leaky High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) single pipe installed at the Water Engineering Laboratory (WEL) of the University of Perugia, Italy. Transients have been generated by a fast and complete closure of a valve placed at the downstream end section of the pipe. In the first phase of the calibration procedure, the proposed algorithm has been used for estimating both the viscoelastic parameters of a generalized Kelvin-Voigt model and the unsteady-state friction coefficient, by minimizing the difference between the numerical and experimental results. In the second phase of the procedure, the calibrated model has allowed evaluating leak size and location with an acceptable accuracy. Precisely, in terms of leak location the relative error is smaller than 5%.
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