METHOD OF DETERMINING AIR-TIGHTNESS OF ARTICLES OPERATING UNDER EXTERNAL PRESSURE Russian patent published in 2012 - IPC G01M3/00 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: inner cavity of an article is evacuated until achieving steady-state equilibrium pressure in the article and testing system; the article is disconnected from the testing system, while continuing to evacuate the testing system, a gas stream Q_k._t. from a reference leak is fed into the testing system. According to the invention, after disconnecting the evacuated article from the testing system, the steady-state equilibrium pressure P_syst.1 in the testing system, which corresponds to the influx of a natural gas separation stream into the testing system and leakage of the testing system is measured, and after feeding the gas stream from the reference leak Q_k.t. into the testing system with the article disconnected from the testing system, the steady-state equilibrium pressure P_syst+k.t. in the testing system is measured, said steady-state equilibrium pressure corresponding to influx of a natural gas separation stream into the testing system and leakage of the testing system and the gas stream from the reference leak Q_k.t., after which the feeding of the gas stream Q_k.t. from the reference leak is stopped; the article is connected with the testing system and the steady-state equilibrium pressure P_art.+syst., which corresponds to the influx into the testing system of a stream from leakage of the article and natural gas separation stream and leakage of the testing system, is measured; the article is disconnected from the testing system and the steady-state equilibrium pressure P_syst.2, which corresponds to influx of natural gas separation stream into the testing system and leakage of the testing system is measured, and the leakage value of the article Q_art. is determined using a mathematical relationship given in the claim.

EFFECT: high accuracy of determining air-tightness of articles, reliability and longevity of articles during use.