JP3090234B2 - Oil leak detector - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a detector suitable for detecting oil leaked from an oil supply system or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A small amount of oil is present in the vicinity of a pipeline, a pump, and the like constituting an oil supply system.
If the sensitivity of an optical sensor or the like is high, it is not possible to distinguish between oil that has leaked due to an accident or a failure, and oil that is constantly present. There is a need for a sensor that can reliably detect. As an oil detector having such a delay characteristic, there has been proposed an oil detector utilizing the fact that a polymer material such as rubber swells with oil.

[0003]

However, a sensor utilizing swelling exhibits a desired detection characteristic when the entire polymer material constituting the detection section is immersed in oil, but has a small amount of leakage. When the number is small, there is a problem that the response speed is extremely slow. The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a novel oil leak detector that exhibits high sensitivity and quick response characteristics even when a part is immersed in oil. It is to provide.

[0004]

In order to solve such a problem, according to the present invention, a container through which oil can flow in from the outside.
In a container, the oil-swelling substance layers are separated from each other by a cloth-like body made of a lipophilic material, and are stacked and accommodated.
And to provide a <br/> displacement detecting means for detecting a displacement in the end portion of the displacement direction of oil swelling material layers.

[0005]

The cloth-like body is interposed between the swelling material layer and the case body containing the swelling material layer, so that the frictional force at the time of swelling is reduced and the thickness can be surely changed. The oil penetrates and moves into the cloth between the oil swelling material layers, so that the oil spreads over the entire surface, and all the swelling material surely swells.

[0006]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numerals 1, 1, 1 ‥‥ denote detection units which absorb oil and swell, for example, a polynorbornene rubber-based or acrylic-based detection unit. As shown in FIG. 2, the oil-swellable substance 2 composed of a granular material or a plate-like material of an oil-swellable polymer (a commercially available product such as Oleosopo (trade name, manufactured by Nippon Shokubai Co., Ltd.) is used. It is housed in a packaging bag 3 made of a cloth-like body having a lipophilic property such as polypropylene or polypropylene and having a through hole.

Returning to FIG. 1, reference numeral 5 denotes a case for accommodating the detection units 1, 1, 1..., And oil inlets 6, 6, 6. A plurality of detection units 1, 1, 1 ‥‥ are housed therein, and a displacement detector 7 is provided so as to always contact one end of the stacked detection units 1, 1, 1 ‥‥. ing.

In this embodiment, the inflow ports 6, 6, 6 °
The oil that has flowed in from さ せ wets the detection units 1, 1, 1 ‥‥ around the inflow ports 6, 6, 6 、 and penetrates into the oil swelling substance 2 inside from the packaging bag 3 to swell it. Further, a part of the oil swelling substance 2 inside is swelled by moving upward due to surface tension with the lipophilic packaging bag 3 to wet the packaging bag 3 of another detection unit. In this way, the oil
It sequentially moves from the lower unit to the upper part by the surface tension with the packaging bag and spreads to all the detection units 1, 1, 1.
All detection units 1,1,1 ‥ regardless of oil level
油 swell the oil swelling substance 2,2,2 ‥‥. As a result, as shown in FIG. 3, the thickness change due to the swelling of each unit is integrated and transmitted to the displacement detector 7, so that a small amount of oil can be quickly detected with high sensitivity.

By the way, since the oil swelling substance generally expands in all directions at the time of swelling, when the oil swelling substance is housed in a case as it is to constitute a detector, the swelling substance comes into elastic contact with the case at the time of swelling. As a result, the oil cannot be moved from the lower part and cannot be expanded sufficiently. However, in the above embodiment, the packaging bag 3 is interposed between the oil swelling substance 2 and the case 5. Not only the frictional force at the time of swelling is reduced and the thickness can be reliably changed, but also the oil penetrates and moves into a part of the packaging bag 3 interposed between the case 5 and all the detection units. As a result, all the detection units in the case 5 swell reliably.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the detection characteristics of the oil leak detector of the present invention, wherein the thickness before swelling is 3 mm,
In addition, an oil swelling substance 0.3 such that the area becomes 20 × 20 mm.
The characteristics (solid line in the figure) when n-decane is used as the oil to be tested are shown in FIG.
Swelling speed and the displacement amount are 10 times as large as those obtained by filling the case (= 1.5 g) into the case (dotted line in the figure).

On the other hand, if water is present at the place where the oil leak detector is installed and a part of the detector is immersed in water, and the leaked oil reaches the unit 1 above the detector, , The oil is lipophilic in the packaging bag 3 and the unit 1
To swell the oil swelling substance 2 inside. At the same time, the unit located below the water surface swells the oil-swelling substance by the oil that has penetrated from the packaging bag 3 of the upper unit that is in contact with the oil. Hereinafter, by such a process, the oil sequentially moves below the water surface to swell all the units.

In addition, a small amount of oil originally adhering to or seeping into the floor or the like is absorbed by the oil swelling substance on the lower surface. ‥‥ The overall degree of swelling does not reach the detection level and therefore does not cause false detection.

In the above-described embodiment, the oil-swelling substance is accommodated in the cloth-like bag. However, as shown in FIG. 5, the oil-swelling substance is placed between the oil-swelling substance layers 10, 10, 10 #. It is clear that the same effect can be obtained even when the lipophilic cloth bodies 11, 11, 11 # are inserted and laminated so that the part 11a reaches the lower layer. In this embodiment, the detection units are vertically stacked. However, it is apparent that the same operation can be obtained even when the detection units are horizontally stacked.

[0014]

As described above, in the present invention,
The container oils which can flow from the outside, yield and laminated to each other to separate the oil swelling material layer by a cloth-like member made of oleophilic material
To the end of the oil swelling material layer in the direction of displacement.
Since there is provided a displacement detecting means for detecting, cloth-like material through as much as possible less leakage oil was spread rapidly throughout the oil swelling material layer, and the friction between the cases when swollen with a cloth-like body Therefore , a large displacement can be generated in a short time when oil is detected .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of an apparatus showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing one embodiment of a detection unit used in the above device.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a state where oil is detected by an oil leak detector of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing detection characteristics of the oil leak detector of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a side view showing another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Detection unit 2 Oil swelling substance 3 Packaging bag 5 Case 6 Oil inlet 7 Displacement detector

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Tomoki Gomi 14-1 Chidori-cho, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Japan Co., Ltd. Inside the Kawasaki Research Laboratories (56) References JP-A-2-18937 (JP, A) Kaihei 4-110741 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G01M 3/00-3/40 G01N 19/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] An oil swelling substance layer is separated from each other by a cloth made of a lipophilic material in a container into which oil can flow from the outside.
The oil swelling and the laminated
An oil leak detector comprising a displacement detection means for detecting displacement at an end of a material layer in a displacement direction .