Together with Holzner Druckbehälter GmbH located in Peißenberg we have developed a pilot plant unit for burst and leakage tests of CO2-compressors in 2011. Because of the innovative character of this customer unit with unprecedented technologies, this project (like many other current PROEMTEC projects) was funded and supported by the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology.
A unit for testing the burst safety and the leakage was newly developed. With this pilot unit completely mounted compressors can be tested with a pressure up to 180 bars. The pressure test is performed with air pressure, while the devices to be tested are allowed to have a gas volume up to 20 litres. The leakage test is performed as a helium leakage test within a vacuum test chamber. The test is performed up to a limit of e.g. 2.6 x 10-5 mbar x litre/ sec. Due to the integrated helium recovery unit, a large amount of the used helium can be recovered by the unit.
The unit is replacing the common and time consuming leakage tests within a water bath and allows further a stability test at full operating pressure. It is designed for the integrated usage within a production line. The blast wave caused by the bursting of a specimen is dampened by the new developed construction, the gases are caught in the unit and will be dischared out of the production hall over a drain pipe. For the system for damping and discharging a patent has been already applied.
The new unit realizes a rational testing of high pressure components, completely mounted, concerning stability and leakage. The cycle time for testing by manual adaption is only 8 minutes in complete, while 4 minutes are due to the testing time itself. With the compact design of the unit, the size of it is similiar to that of a common vacuum-helium test unit.
The process visualization, the process data exchange with PPS and the basic control of the processes is carried out with a mini PC.
The new developed feeding unit allows an easy and quick mounting of the specimen that can have a maximum weight of 400 kg.
With the newly gained knowledge during this project, PROEMTEC is able to develop and modify similiar units with indiviual customer parameters with very short time required.