METHOD OF DETECTING AND ESTIMATING SIZES OF SINGLE METAL PARTICLES IN LUBRICATION SYSTEM OF FRICTION PAIRS OF POWER PLANTS Russian patent published in 2020 - IPC G01N15/02 

FIELD: metallurgy.

SUBSTANCE: invention can be used for detection and registration of wear metal particles in oil flow. Summary of invention is that method of detecting and estimating sizes of single metal particles in lubrication system of friction pairs of power plants consists in pumping oil of engine lubrication system through passage channel of metal particles detection sensor; conversion of information on passage of metal particles through a sensor channel into an electrical signal using a differential electrical circuit, which includes two single-turn sensitive elements SE₁ and SE₂, shifted relative to each other by a given distance h; detecting metal particles in an oil stream; identifying magnetic or nonmagnetic metal particles from a set of two successive heteropolar pulses U₁ and U₂ in a signal of a measuring circuit corresponding to the time of passage of the first and second sensitive elements by the metal particle; calculating the elementary oil flow rate V, in which the detected metal particle moves, based on the known distance and passage time of the metal particle between the detecting elements; wherein the following additional operations are introduced: determining the average oil flow rate in the metal particles detector channel according to the information from the additional flow sensor; calculation of radius r_v, at which metal particle cross section of oil channel, enclosed by ring circuit of sensitive element, at average speed V₀, given radius R of pipeline and known law of hydrodynamics, which determines distribution of elementary flow rates along section of pipeline at laminar flow of oil; calculating the size d of the metal particle from the value of the extreme value of the pulse signal of the measuring circuit U_1ext, from the calculated radius r_v and the previously obtained experimental calibration characteristics U_1ext-rx(d, r).

EFFECT: technical result is possibility of determining numerical value of size of metal particles.

1 cl, 2 dwg