METHOD OF INSPECTING AIR-TIGHTNESS OF ARTICLES IN VACUUM CHAMBER Russian patent published in 2012 - IPC G01M3/02 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: article is put into a vacuum chamber, evacuation of which is carried out until achieving equilibrium pressure and a steady-state constant value of a leak detector signal which displays residual concentration (background) of the control gas Ares. According to the invention, after evacuation of the vacuum chamber, a variable calibrating stream of control gas Qc is fed into the vacuum chamber, where said stream results in a leak detector reading which is equal to the value of residual concentration of the control gas in the vacuum chamber (Ares) multiplied by two ("zero" measurement). The stream of the calibrating gas is then cut and the article is filled with the control gas to working pressure Pwor. The value Ares+art is obtained at the leak detector and a variable calibrating stream of control gas Q'c is fed into the vacuum chamber, which results in a leak detector reading which is equal to the value Ares+art multiplied by two (check measurement). The control gas is removed from the article and the leakage value of the article is determined from the difference between Q'c and Qc.

EFFECT: high accuracy and effectiveness of inspection, widening the range of detected leakages towards small leakages with direct measurement of leakages with the highest accuracy with minimum volume of required calculations.

4 cl