Be Safe With Helium Leak Test
Leakage can create havoc on us. We have seen so many evidences of that in the past and in the recent times as well. Such seepages can result in mutating our genes as well. The after-effect of such disasters can span to decades and even centuries. For this reason, the large factories have taken care that no accident should occur because of that. Several tracers are employed in the industrial site to check for the leakages. Among several tracers, Helium Leak Test is said to be the most effective one.
Tracer is used to check the presence of leakages at any site. The question arises as to why Helium is said to be the most efficient one? Helium is basically an inert gas. It stands strong without any reaction to fire, that is, it is inflammable. Being non-toxic, its presence at any accidental site will not pose further danger.
Its atomic size is small so it can pass effortlessly in the leakage passage. Both Hydrogen and Helium are inert gases and are relatively less expensive. A device called Mass Spectrometer Leak Detector (MSLD) is used to measure the size and extent of leakage. The detector is then filled with the Helium and passed to the leakages.
Let’s have a glance over the components of Mass Spectrometer Leak Detector (MSLD):
· Spectrometer: it is used to detect the mass of the Helium gas
· Evacuation pump: it is use to empty the leakage
· A valve or a stopper: that sets in motion the operation of evacuation, venting and testing stages.
· An amplifier is used to gauge the motion of the output.
Payback of using Helium leak test
Helium Leak Test can be used for both small leakage detection as well as large leaks detection. Basically, there are two types of procedures:
· First is “high vacuum testing”, in which low leak threshold is set.
· And one is sniffing, in which a bit higher limit is set to trace the leaks.
A benefit of using this technique is that Helium is readily available. The most common form of this gas is balloon gas. This gas is mixed with other gases like nitrogen or compressed air which are low cost. This is done because while testing large leakages, it becomes necessary to mix Helium with other gases. Helium can also be recovered by extracting it into a vessel.