Instrumentation and control system and method for fluid transport and processing

In combination, an equiduct system including at least one elongated conduit with a thin elastic wall submerged in a liquid and carrying a liquid in fluid equilibrium with the first-named liquid, strain gage means on the wall of said conduit for detecting the difference between the pressures inside and outside said conduit, and an elongated data transmission system having a plurality of measurement stations spaced along a transmission line, a monitoring station, means for communicating along said transmission line data collected at said measurement stations, means for inserting measurement information from each of said measurement stations into said transmission line, and means in said monitoring station for receiving said information, wherein the transmission line has a speed of propagation and a length such that the delay time to said monitoring station from the most remote of said measurement stations is significantly longer than the time required for each measurement information inserting means to insert said information into said transmission line;

• the improvement wherein said communicating means includes a source of repetitive sampling signal bursts, each burst including a plurality of code-identified blank intervals, and means at each measurement station for detecting a selected one of said blank intervals in accordance with said code;
• each said information measurement inserting means being operative to insert at least a portion of said information into the respective said one blank interval, such that the sampling rate at which said measuring stations can insert data and at which the monitoring station can receive said information from said measurement stations does not depend on the distance along said transmission line to said measurement stations but instead depends on the rate of repetition of the code-identified blank intervals of said sampling signal;
• wherein said strain gage means includes means supplying the detected pressure difference to an associated one of said measurement information inserting means.

In an equiduct system including at least one elongated conduit with a thin elastic wall submerged in a liquid and carrying a liquid in fluid equilibrium with the first-named liquid, said wall being made of electrically insulating material, the improvement comprising an electrical potentiometer circuit including spaced electrical contacts contacting the liquid in said conduit and forming two electrodes of a potentiometer, the liquid impedances between a leak in the conduit wall and said contacts forming two resistances of said potentiometer, means for applying a voltage to said potentiometer and detecting the ratio of the voltages across said resistances to represent the distances of said contact from said leak, and an elongated data transmission system having a plurality of measurement stations spaced along a transmission line, a monitoring station, means for communicating along said transmission line data collected at said measurement stations, means for inserting measurement information from each of said measurement stations into said transmission line, and means in said monitoring station for receiving said information, wherein the transmission line has a speed of propagation and a length such that the delay time to said monitoring station from the most remote of said measurement stations is significantly longer than the time required for each measurement information inserting means to insert said information;

• the improvement wherein said communicating means includes a sampling signal source for applying repetitive sampling signal bursts to said transmission line to travel past said measurement stations towards, each burst including a plurality of code-identified blank intervals, and means at each measurement station for detecting a selected one of said blank intervals in accordance with said code;
• each said information measurement inserting means being operative to insert at least a portion of said information into the respective said one blank interval, such that the sampling rate at which said measuring stations can insert data and at which the monitoring station can receive successive elements of said information from said measurement stations does not depend on the distance along said transmission line to said measurement stations but instead depends on the rate of repetition of the code-identified blank intervals of said sampling signal;
• wherein said means applying voltage and detecting the voltage ratio includes means supplying information, representing the distances from said leak, to an associated one of said measurement information inserting means.

A method employing an elongated data transmission system for measuring the pressure difference between the inside and outside of a equiduct, the elongated data transmission system having a plurality of measurement stations spaced along a transmission line, a monitoring station, means for communicating along said transmission line data collected at said measurement stations, means for inserting measurement information from each of said measurement stations into said transmission line, and means in said monitoring station for receiving said information, wherein the transmission line has a speed of propagation and a length such that the delay time to said monitoring station from the most remote of said measurement stations is significantly longer than the time required for each measurement information inserting means to insert said information into said transmission line;

• wherein said communicating means includes a sampling signal source of for applying repetitive sampling signal bursts to said transmission line to travel past said measurement stations, each burst including a plurality of code-identified blank intervals, and means at each measurement station for detecting a selected one of said blank intervals in accordance with said code;
• each said information measurement inserting means being operative to insert a least a portion of said information into the respective said one blank interval, such that the sampling rate at which said measuring stations can insert data and at which the monitoring station can receive successive elements of said information from said measurement stations does not depend on the distance along said transmission line to said measurement stations but instead depends on the rate of repetition of the code-identified blank intervals of said sampling signal;
• said method comprising measuring the strain in the equiduct wall converting the resulting strain measurement to a pressure measurement, and supplying said pressure measurement to a respective one of said measurement information inserting means of said elongated data transmission system.