Syrinix Anti-Burst System Deployed By Thames Water To Make Major Leaks A Thing Of The Past

Thames Water, keen to avoid the kind of high-profile leaks that flooded shops on Oxford Street in January, is the first client of Syrinix's innovative TrunkMinder pipe-monitoring system.

Syrinix's advanced TrunkMinder devices will be installed onto Thames Water's major strategic water mains over the next few years beginning this summer, providing a constant monitoring of pipe integrity to Thames Water online and helping the company to detect and minimise leaks.

Several devices have already been fitted and are working well.

The Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and the worst drought in decades are converging to make 2012 an especially sensitive time for leaks in South East England's urban areas, with thousands of miles of ageing networks in London alone. The accuracy of TrunkMinder in pinpointing small leaks will be invaluable, saving time and money whilst minimising disruption, as well as lowering overall repair bills and compensation payouts, which can run to tens of millions of pounds annually.

"Before now, water companies had to wait for a burst before they knew there was a problem," says Syrinix CEO James Dunning. "With this technology, they can find the leaks and repair them before they cause a catastrophic failure. We are the only highly sensitive, automated 24/7 monitoring system on the market which can detect early stage leaks."

TrunkMinder uses a number of sensors, placed in pairs approximately every 750 metres along a trunk main, which monitor the integrity of the pipe using a hydrophone, geophone, pressure sensor and optional flow monitor to detect vibro-acoustic patterns caused by water running through the pipes. The sensors are physically attached to the pipe, and constantly feed back information to Syrinix's central servers via broadband or mobile data links. The data is analysed many times each second using Syrinix's algorithms, 24 hours a day, and a computer model compares the information received with the expected data for use at that time. This allows even minor changes in activity to be noted and monitored, and any minor leaks to be detected and tracked within one metre, providing an automated, precise, highly qualified early warning system on threat areas for major leaks.

Primary assembly of the TrunkMinder technology is carried out at Syrinix's Norwich base, and the company is using UK suppliers to ensure quality and consistency. "We could go abroad and save money," says Mr Dunning, "But quality and timeliness are at Syrinix's core and if anything goes wrong on a production run, we can go through everything with local suppliers. That is a 30 minute car journey rather than a 13 hour flight."

About Syrinix
Syrinix is a British company that is a leader in developing smart pipeline monitoring technology. Its products are building a growing reputation among water companies, infrastructure managers, major water-consuming businesses and industry regulators for their ability to improve the management of water pipelines.

Syrinix, based at the Hethel engineering centre in Norwich, was spun out from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2004. The company's focus is developing world-leading water infrastructure monitoring technology. Investors in Syrinix include Iceni Seedcorn Fund, Carbon Connections, UEA, the London Business Angels EIS Fund and the Low Carbon Innovation Fund. In 2011 the company won the clean tech investment of the year award from the British Business Angels Association, the government-backed trade association which promotes and supports early stage industries and investment in the UK. The award recognises innovative and successful new businesses in the environmental sector. For more information, visit www.syrinix.com.

By monitoring with Syrinix:

• pipe networks can be managed better with asset life extended
• water losses, and the resulting environmental damage, can be substantially reduced
• data critical to compliance and regulatory submissions can be gathered in real time
• cost increases from emergency responses and rising insurance premia can be cut
• preventative, and often unnecessary, pipeline maintenance and repair costs can be reduced.

SOURCE: Syrinix