Monitoring of release pressure of steam generator safety valve - using computer to compare converted acoustic signals from a microphone with threshold value

摘要

A microphone (1) is placed next to the valve (S) and is connected to a band pass filter (5kHz + 1/3 octave). This delivers an analogue signal representing the open or closed state of the valve. A data sampling system (20) allows the analogue signal to be stored in numerical form. A computer program is used to determine the acoustic release pressure by comparing the numerical signal with a defined threshold value and to create a database of the history of the valve. USE/ADVANTAGE - In periodic monitoring of the pressure required to release a safety valve for a steam generator of a nuclear power station. Evolution of the characteristics of each valve can be followed.