JPH04297716A - Device for automatically monitoring fuel oil leakage - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To remotely monitor whether fuel oil leakage occurs from a connection of a pipeline for fuel oil for an burner and also the extent of leakage if it occurs and find the results thereof in real time. CONSTITUTION:The inner surfaces of fuel oil pans 3, 4 disposed beneath a burner 1 are imaged by an industrial camera 7, and obtained image signals 11 are processed by an image processing unit 8. Processed results are then a printed 16, and accordingly, the presence and extent of fuel oil leakage can be found remotely and at real time.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic oil leakage monitoring device.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art In oil-fired boilers, when the burner point is extinguished, the burner is inserted into the furnace or extracted from the furnace by an air cylinder. Therefore, the oil piping joint that supplies oil fuel to the burner may become loose due to the above-mentioned operation of the burner over a long period of time, and oil may leak from the joint.

For this reason, conventionally, an under-burner oil pan was installed below and in front of the burner, and a floor-mounted oil pan was installed on the floor below the burner to catch the leaking oil. Because operators regularly patrol and monitor the system, they are unable to respond immediately even if oil leaks occur, and the response to oil leaks becomes post-treatment, which may lead to major accidents in some cases. be.

[0004] In view of the above-mentioned circumstances, the present invention remotely monitors whether or not oil is leaking from the oil piping connections of the burner, and if so, to what extent, and allows the results to be known in real time. This was done with the purpose of

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides an oil pan disposed below a burner to catch leaked oil, an industrial camera for photographing the inner surface of the oil pan, and a photographing apparatus that uses the industrial camera to photograph the inside of the oil pan. an image processing device that calculates at least one of the area or brightness change of the oil leaking inside the oil pan from the image obtained by the image processing; A display device is provided to display one of the two.

[0006]

[Operation] The image of the inside of the oil pan taken with an industrial camera is sent to an image processing device to determine at least one of the area or brightness change of the leaked oil, and the determined oil area or brightness change. At least one of them is displayed on the display device. Therefore, the presence or absence of oil leakage and the status of oil leakage can be known in real time from a remote location such as the central control room.

[0007]

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 3 show an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows the front burner section of an oil-fired boiler to which the present invention is applied. Oil pan, 4 is a floor-standing oil pan installed on the floor in front of the lower part of burner 1, 5 and 6 are oil that has leaked and accumulated inside oil pans 3 and 4, and oil pan 3 under the burner has a specific color such as vermilion. The floor-standing oil pan 4 is coated with a specific color such as silver. The reason why the oil pan 3 is made red is to clearly distinguish it from the surrounding piping, and the reason why the oil pan 4 is made silver is to detect even the slightest change in the brightness of the oil. be.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the automatic oil leakage monitoring device of the present invention, in which 7 is an industrial camera such as a solid-state image type installed behind the boiler burner section, 8 is an image processing device, Image 9 shown in FIG. 3 taken with industrial camera 7
, 10 can be supplied to the image processing device 8 as an image signal 11.

The image processing device 8 is equipped with an image area determination circuit 8a and a brightness change determination circuit 8b, and is capable of determining the image area of the image 9 as well as the brightness change of the image 10. There is.

Reference numeral 12 indicates an alarm generating device which issues an alarm when there is an abnormality as a result of processing the image signal 11 in the image processing device 8; 13 indicates an image processing command signal 14 to the image processing device 8 or performs image processing. A computer inputs the image signal 15 processed and output by the device 8, and 16 is a printer (display device) that prints out the image signal 15 from the computer 13.

When automatically monitoring oil leakage, the interior of the oil pan 3 and the oil pan 4 are photographed by the industrial camera 7, and the photographed images 9 and 10 are converted into image signals 11.
The image is sent to the image processing device 8 as a.

Among the images taken with the industrial camera 7,
The image 9 within the prespecified monitoring range indicated by A1 in FIG. 2, that is, the range A2 in FIG.
That is, the image 10 in the range B2 in FIG. 3 is input to the brightness change determination circuit 8b.

The number of pixels S0 corresponding to the reference oil leakage area is set in advance in the image area determination circuit 8a, and the number of pixels S0 of the oil leakage area of the image 9 taken by the industrial camera 7 and the reference oil leakage area are set in advance. The difference in the number of pixels S0 is determined by the image area determination circuit 8.
a (this is called the area comparison method with the normal state), and when the number of pixels S of the oil leakage area becomes greater than or equal to the number of pixels S0 of the reference oil leakage area, that is, when S≧S0, the image processing device 8 A command is given to the alarm generating device 12, and an abnormality alarm is issued.

The brightness change determination circuit 8b stores in advance the number of pixels X of a reference image in a normal state taken by the industrial camera 7, and the number of pixels X and the number of pixels taken by the industrial camera 7 at the time of monitoring are stored in memory. The difference in the number of pixels Y of the sent image 10 is determined by the brightness change determination circuit 8b as images X' and Y', X-Y=X.
'...(i) Y-X=Y'...(ii) It is determined by the following.

If the number of pixels corresponding to the brightness change caused by the oil leak is α, and the number of pixels corresponding to the brightness change due to some other amount of movement (for example, the amount of movement of the oil pan) is β, then X'=α.
+β...(iii)Y'=-α+β=β...(
iv) becomes. Note that -α is canceled in equation (iv) because the number of pixels never becomes negative, and therefore -α=0 in this case.

[0018] Also, the number of pixels Z for the luminance change of images X' and Y'
By subtracting equation (iv) from equation (iii), Z=X
'-Y'=α...(v) The number of pixels Z corresponding to this luminance change is compared with the number Z0 of pixels corresponding to the reference luminance change set in advance in the luminance change discrimination circuit 8b, and the presence or absence of an abnormality is determined. be judged. This method is called an image-to-image difference method.

[0019] Then, when the number of pixels Z corresponding to the luminance change becomes greater than or equal to the number Z0 of pixels corresponding to the reference luminance variation, that is, Z≧Z0.
When this occurs, a command is given from the image processing device 8 to the alarm generating device 12, and an alarm is issued.

The image signal 15 processed by the image processing device 8 is sent from the computer 13 to the printer 16, and the printer 16 calculates the number of pixels S corresponding to the area of leaked oil (oil leakage area) and the number of pixels whose brightness changes. Z will be printed out. By looking at this printout, it is possible to know whether or not there is oil leakage in the oil pan 3 and oil pan 4 portions, and if so, to what extent, in real time from a central control room or the like.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a case has been described in which oil leakage from an oil pan under a burner is detected by an area comparison method, and oil leakage from a floor-standing oil pan is detected by an image-to-image difference method. It is also possible to monitor oil leakage from the oil pan under the burner using the image-to-image difference method, and oil leakage from the oil pan placed on the floor using the area comparison method. Monitoring may be performed using either method, a television may be used as the display device instead of a printer, and the present invention may be implemented without an alarm device, within the scope of the scope of the present invention. Of course, various changes can be made.

[0022]

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the automatic oil leakage monitoring device of the present invention, the presence or absence of oil leakage and the status of oil leakage can be known remotely and in real time, thereby improving safety. In addition, since there is no need for operators to patrol, various excellent effects can be achieved, such as contributing to labor saving.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an automatic oil leakage monitoring device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a boiler burner section to which the automatic oil leakage monitoring device of FIG. 1 is applied.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of an image taken with an industrial camera in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Burner 3, 4 Oil pan 5, 6 Oil 7 Industrial camera 8 Image processing device 8a Image area determination circuit 8b
Brightness change discrimination circuit 9, 10 Image

Claims (1)

[Claims] Claim 1: An oil pan disposed below the burner to catch leaked oil, an industrial camera for photographing the inner surface of the oil pan, and an image taken by the industrial camera to detect leakage inside the oil pan. an image processing device that calculates at least one of the area or brightness change of leaked oil; and a display device that displays at least one of the area or brightness change of leaked oil determined by the image processing device. An automatic oil leakage monitoring device characterized by having the following features: