Leak Noise Correlator

An instrument that pinpoints a leak by comparing the sound arriving at two contact points on the same pipe and calculating where it originated from the difference in arrival time.

Sensors are clamped at two accessible points — hydrants, valves, or exposed pipe — and the correlator solves for the leak position using the distance between them and the speed of sound in that pipe material. It works where a ground microphone cannot, because the sound travels in the pipe wall rather than up through the surface, which matters under pavement or at depth. Accuracy depends on getting the pipe length and material right, so measured distances beat estimates.