# How to calculate volume leakage of pipeline from a pinhole only?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-calculate-volume-leakage-of-pipeline-from-a-pinhole-only/768828
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 17, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-calculate-volume-leakage-of-pipeline-from-a-pinhole-only/768828 "2016-10-17T13:07:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-calculate-volume-leakage-of-pipeline-from-a-pinhole-only/768828/2 "2016-10-17T13:17:38Z")

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> [@How to calculate leakage through a hole in a pipe](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-calculate-leakage-through-a-hole-in-a-pipe/610106/7):
>
> Hello and hi, i have the quite same question maybe, but not exactly same. Then i need to calculate the volume leakage of underground pipeline.  
> The information i got are:  
> Duration for leakage=10min  
> Diameter of leakage=3’’  
> Flowrate inlet throughout the pipeline=987m3/hr  
> Length of pipeline=500m  
> Pressure at 10 bar  
> So can you guys give some guide or step for me to follow to get the correct or estimation value for leakage volume?

This will be very difficult to even give a rough estimate. If the pipe is buried in very porous sand, such that the effluent can easily percolate through the sand away from the leak, you could flow quite a lot of liquid. OTOH, if the pipe is buried in very fine clay, you might not flow much liquid at all.

You can give an absolute upper bound for the leak velocity as C\*(pressure \* 2/density)^0.5 (make sure your units are consistent, i.e. density in kg/m^3, pressure in Pascals (N/m^2, which is actually kg_m/(s^2_m^2)), and velocity in m/s), and C is the discharge coefficient for a hole in the side of the pipe, maybe 0.7). But the values for a buried pipe will be far, far below that.

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