Acoustic Inspections (SL Rat)
Identify Capacity Issues within Minutes at Minimal cost !
Most waste-water utility operators that have evaluated their entire collection system will tell you that 60-80% is not in immediate need of repair or emergency maintenance.
Duke’s highly portable onsite assessment tool (SL RAT) – identifies capacity issues in gravity-fed sewers within minutes without the need of traditional CCTV- at 1/10th to 1/20th of the cost! Inspect 10,000+ ft. per day.
How Does It Work?
Duke’s Acoustic Pipeline Monitoring technology (SL RAT) is based on measuring the signal received from an active acoustic transmission within a sewer line segment. From that acoustic signal, an acoustic profile is obtained. The profile represents the sound energy a pipe transmits in a given state of operation.
Commonly encountered sanitary sewer defects, such as roots, fats, oil and grease (FOG), as well as breakages naturally absorb or reflect acoustic energy. This informs blockage assessments and changes the pipeline’s acoustic properties to produce a measurable impact on the acoustic profile. The algorithm within the acoustic inspection technology programming exploits these variations to provide a real time evaluation of the pipeline segment’s blockage condition.
How Does The Technology Collect Data?
The unit is composed of two components – the Transmitter (or TX unit) and the Receiver (or RX unit). Each device is sold or leased as a uniquely configured “pair” – with the TX providing the active acoustic signal through the pipe. Think of the TX as “yelling” down the pipe and the RX providing the microphone and signal processing capabilities. These are used to listen and interpret the received acoustic signal. Think of the RX as the brain “listening” for the blockage and processing the blockage assessment result.
Additionally, each component is equipped with GPS and the ability to communicate between the TX and RX via RF, which provides your organization with world class data labeling, data registration and test validation capabilities.
How Do Clients Use Our Data?
During the inspection program, clients are given credentials to log on and view our real time data collector which they can use to identify blocked line segments and deploy their maintenance crews immediately during the project.
