Measuring the decay of pressure over a given period of time

Excel Pipelines and sister company HydroHire - Offer Pipeline Commissioning & Hydrostatic Testing Equipment Sales, and associated services to Nationwide Utility Companies.

We were asked by Hydrohire to develop a unique Web Based and Stand Alone application that enables users to test Polyethylene pipes for leaks. The process the testers employ basically pumps a section up to a certain pressure with water. This measures the decay of pressure over a given period of time. The rate of decay of pressure indicates if the pipe has a leak or not, and if so, what sort of leak it may have.

The application we asked to build allows the tester to:-

• Enter the particulars of the job, Company, Address etc
• Enter the start and end time of the test, which automatically generates the times that the scheduled pressure readings should be taken.
• The tester enters these readings into the application, and can save a test in progress for later completion.
• The tester then clicks on a “calculate” button, and is delivered the results of the test according to formulas laid out by the WRc formulas
• The tester can then generate a PDF document for either saving or printing detailing the results of the test.

The Online system allows for users to be set up by Hydrohire. These users can either run a set number of tests, or unlimited tests, depending on what they have paid for.

A Stand alone version of the application was also created that could be installed on Testers Laptops. This was developed in .Net and allows testers to run tests out in the field, where they may not have an internet connection.