SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN STANDARD GAS LEAK DESIGNS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS TO COMPUTER CONTROL SYSTEMS

摘要

The primary difficulty with flow rate measurements below 10 exp -10 standard cubic centimeters per second (std. cc/sec) is that there are no commercially available standards. The requirements, however, dictate that the problem of design and construction of a qualifiable standard in the ultra-sensitive range had to be solved. There are a number of leak types which were considered: capillary leaks, orifice leaks, and the pore type leaks, among others. The capillary leak was not used because of the cracking or sorting effects that are common to this type leak. For example, a gas blend flowing through a capillary leak will result in the lighter gases passing through the leak first. The difficulty of fabricating the proper hole size in relation to the flow rate requirements ruled out the orifice type leak. The selected choice was the pore type leak which utilizes the basic concept of a stainless steel knife edge driven into a fixed section composed of stainless steel with a gold overlay and maintained under force. (ERA citation 04:014302)