Leak inspection device, leak inspection method, and leak inspection program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9970840-B2
Application number	US-201314430258-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 19, 2013
Priority date	Sep 27, 2012
Publication date	May 15, 2018
Grant date	May 15, 2018

Abstract

Each functional configuring unit of a leak inspection device ( 2000 ) operates in the manner that follows. A vibration acquisition unit ( 2020 ) acquires a signal indicating tubing vibrations or vibrations propagated from tubing. A filtering unit ( 2040 ) extracts a signal of a predetermined frequency band from the signal acquired by the vibration acquisition unit ( 2020 ). A characteristic value extraction unit ( 2060 ) splits the signal extracted by the filtering unit ( 2040 ) into predetermined time intervals, calculates for each split signal the absolute value of each extreme value of the magnitude of the signal, performs for each split signal a statistical process with respect to the calculated plurality of absolute values, and considers values calculated by the statistical process to be characteristic values. A leak determination unit ( 2080 ) considers inspection results to indicate the presence of a leak when a determination index value stipulated using the characteristic values is greater than a predetermined threshold.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A leak inspection device comprising:
a vibration acquisition unit that acquires a signal indicating a vibration of a pipe or a vibration propagating from a pipe;
a filtering unit that extracts, from the signal, a signal in one frequency band;
a characteristic value extracting unit that divides the extracted signal at predetermined time intervals, calculates an absolute value for each of a plurality of extreme values of level of the signal for each of the divided signals, and calculates a characteristic value by performing a statistical process on the plurality of absolute values;
a leak determining unit that calculates a determination index value by using the characteristic value, and determines presence of a leak on the pipe by determining that the determination index value is larger than a predetermined threshold; and
leak position specifying unit that acquires the determination index values from other plural leak inspection devices and specifies, as a leak position, a position between an installation position of a leak inspection device indicating a largest determination index value and an installation position of a leak inspection device indicating a second largest determination index value in a present leak inspection device and the plurality of leak inspection devices.

2. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , wherein the characteristic value extracting unit performs a process of calculating a minimum value of the plurality of absolute values as the statistical process.

3. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , wherein the leak determining unit uses the characteristic value as the determination index value.

4. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a characteristic value history storing unit that stores a history of characteristic values,
wherein the leak determining unit calculates a characteristic value acceleration indicating a degree of increase in the characteristic value by using the characteristic value extracted by the characteristic value extracting unit and a characteristic value in the past which is stored in the characteristic value history storing unit, and sets the calculated characteristic value acceleration as the determination index value.

5. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a characteristic value history storing unit that stores a history of characteristic values,
wherein the leak determining unit calculates a characteristic value acceleration indicating a degree of increase in the characteristic value by using the characteristic value extracted by the characteristic value extracting unit and a characteristic value in the past which is stored in the characteristic value history storing unit,
calculates a past characteristic value acceleration indicating a degree of increase in the past of the characteristic value by using a characteristic value in the past which is stored in the characteristic value history storing unit and the characteristic value stored in the characteristic value history storing unit prior to the characteristic value in the past, and
determines the determination index value on a basis of a value obtained by adding the characteristic value acceleration and the past characteristic value acceleration.

6. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a leak amount information acquiring unit that acquires leak amount information indicating correspondence between the determination index value and a leak amount of a pipe; and
a leak amount calculating unit that refers to the leak amount information by using a determination index value obtained from the leak determining unit and calculates a leak amount of a pipe on a basis of a reference result.

7. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a deterioration rate information acquiring unit that acquires deterioration rate information as information indicating a correspondence between the determination index value and a deterioration rate of a pipe; and
a deterioration rate calculating unit that refers to the deterioration rate information by using a determination index value acquired from the leak determining unit and calculates a deterioration rate of a pipe on a basis of the reference result.

8. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a determination result acquiring unit that acquires a determination result by leak determining unit of other leak inspection devices; and
an overall determining unit that determines presence of a leak as an inspection result by determining presence of a leak is in a predetermined number or more of leak inspection devices, in the present leak inspection device and the other leak inspection devices.

9. The leak inspection device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a plurality of filtering units that extract signals in different frequency bands; and
a plurality of characteristic value extracting means that extract the characteristic values from the signals extracted by a different filtering unit,
wherein the leak determining unit acquires the characteristic values from a plurality of characteristic value extracting units, determines the determination index value for each of the characteristic values, compares the determination index value with a predetermined threshold and, by determining that any determination index value is larger than the predetermined threshold, determines the presence of a leak as an inspection result.

10. The leak inspection device according to claim 9 , further comprising:
a characteristic value history storing unit that stores a history of the characteristic values,
wherein the leak determining unit calculates, for each of the characteristic values, a characteristic value acceleration indicating a degree of increase of a characteristic value by using a present characteristic value and a characteristic value stored in the characteristic value history storing unit and extracted in the past by the characteristic value extracting unit which extracted the present characteristic value, and sets each of the characteristic value accelerations as the determination index value.

11. The leak inspection device according to claim 10 , wherein the leak determining unit calculates, for each of the characteristic values, a past characteristic value acceleration indicating a degree of increase in the past of the characteristic value by using the characteristic value in the past which is stored in the characteristic value storing unit by the characteristic value extracting unit which extracted the present characteristic value and the characteristic value stored in the characteristic value history storing unit prior to the characteristic value in the past by the characteristic value extracting unit,
determines an addition characteristic value acceleration on a basis of a value obtained by adding the characteristic value acceleration and a past characteristic value acceleration, and sets each of the addition characteristic value accelerations as the determination index value.

12. The leak inspection device according to claim 9 , comprising:
a leak amount information acquiring unit that acquires leak amount information indicating correspondence between the determination index value and a leak amount of a pipe; and
a leak amount calculating unit that acquires each of leak amounts based on the determination index values from the leak amount information by using each of the determination index values and sets a statistical value of the plurality of acquired leak amounts as a leak amount of the pipe.

13. The leak inspe

Assignees

• Nec Corp

Inventors

• Shinoda Shigeki
• Sasaki Yasuhiro
• Takahashi Masatake
• Mataga Junichiro
• Takata Soichiro

Classifications

• F17D5/06

  using electric or acoustic means · CPC title

• G01M3/2807 Primary

  for pipes (G01M3/2892, G01M3/30 take precedence) · CPC title

• G01M3/243 Primary

  for pipes · CPC title