ABSTRACT
This article presents the development of an active optical fiber device to address the issue of leak detection, and to allow operators to monitor the performance and safety of mountain reservoirs sealed with geomembrane lining systems. The device includes a fiber integrated into the geomembrane lining system and devices to heat and auscultate the fiber. The results shown that the active method has been successfully applied in a representative INRAE demonstrator. In particular, it has been shown that the technique is capable of locating without false positives or negatives a leak with a flow rate greater than or equal to 0.05 l/s and placed upstream of the optical fiber.
