A district heating pipeline project in Jincheng, Shanxi Province, has deployed DEAN Technology's distributed fiber optic pipeline monitoring system to improve pipeline safety and detect risks associated with pipeline leaks and third-party excavation.
The project covers approximately 66 kilometers of heating pipelines, with a maximum pipe diameter of DN1400. Multiple fiber optic temperature sensing units and vibration sensing units are integrated into the monitoring system, providing continuous monitoring across the pipeline network.
Long-distance district heating pipelines can be exposed to multiple operational and external risks. Pipeline leakage can lead to heat and water loss, service interruptions, and potentially more serious infrastructure damage, while nearby excavation and construction activities can pose additional risks to buried pipelines.
For the Jincheng project, distributed fiber optic sensing provides continuous monitoring along the pipeline route, helping operators detect abnormal conditions and identify their locations more quickly.
Unlike conventional point-based sensors, distributed fiber optic monitoring uses optical fiber as a continuous sensing medium, making it particularly suitable for long linear assets such as district heating pipelines.
The Jincheng system is designed to address two important pipeline safety risks:
Pipeline leakage
Third-party excavation and construction activity
When abnormal conditions associated with a potential leak or external disturbance occur, the monitoring system can detect the event and determine its location along the pipeline.
This enables operators to investigate the affected section more quickly and take appropriate action before the problem develops into a more serious pipeline failure.
The project uses multiple fiber optic temperature sensing units together with fiber optic vibration sensing units to form an integrated distributed monitoring system.
Temperature and vibration monitoring provide complementary information for pipeline safety.
Temperature changes can provide valuable information for identifying abnormal thermal conditions associated with heating pipeline operation and potential leakage, while vibration sensing can help identify external disturbances such as excavation or construction activity near the pipeline.
By combining these sensing capabilities, operators gain greater visibility into both internal pipeline conditions and external threats along the route.
For engineers evaluating different distributed sensing technologies,DTS, DAS and BOTDA distributed fiber optic sensing technologiesare designed for different monitoring objectives and can be selected or combined according to project requirements.
With approximately 66 kilometers of pipeline to monitor, continuous distributed sensing offers significant advantages over relying solely on conventional discrete monitoring points.
The sensing fiber provides monitoring coverage along the pipeline route, while centralized monitoring equipment analyzes the sensing data and generates information that can support alarm and event localization.
For long-distance heating networks, this approach can help operators:
Detect abnormal pipeline conditions earlier
Identify potential leak locations
Detect third-party excavation risks
Reduce the time required to investigate abnormal events
Improve pipeline operation and maintenance efficiency
Support safer and more reliable heating network operation
The Jincheng project demonstrates how distributed fiber optic sensing can be applied to large-scale district heating infrastructure where long monitoring distances and multiple risk types need to be addressed.
By integrating temperature and vibration sensing into a distributed monitoring system, heating network operators can move beyond periodic inspection toward continuous condition monitoring and earlier risk detection.
The deployment provides an additional layer of monitoring for the Jincheng district heating network and supports safer, more reliable operation during the winter heating season.
DEAN Technology provides distributed fiber optic sensing and pipeline monitoring solutions for district heating, long-distance pipelines, and other critical linear infrastructure applications.
