JPS6312937A - Method and apparatus for measuring contaminant in oil - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To measure the contents of extraneous material and moisture in oil by determining a first change quantity of light by the contaminated oil and second change quantity of light by the oil from which the extraneous materials are removed by an extraneous material separator and which contains only the moisture by a series of measuring operations. CONSTITUTION:One end of a measuring pipe 1a is inserted into the oil 2 to be examined and is sucked by a pump 10 provided to the measuring pipe 1b side. Photosensors are provided before and behind the extraneous material separator 9. The first change quantity of light by the contaminated oil is detected by a detector 5 and the second change quantity of light by the oil from which the extraneous materials are removed and which contains only the moisture is detected by a detector 5a. The detected values are current-amplified by an amplifier 11 and are transmitted to an arithmetic unit 12. The first change quantity of light, the second change quantity of light and the different therebetween are calculated in the unit 12 and the results of measuring the contents of the moisture and extraneous material are outputted by a display device 13. The measurement of the contents of the moisture and extraneous materials important in the management of the oil is thus executed by a series of the measuring operations using the same specimen.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for optically detecting and measuring the amount of water and contaminants contained in, for example, contaminated oil.

(Prior art) In the past, many attempts have been made to optically capture the contamination state of oil, and one known method is to irradiate light from the side of oil and determine the amount of light scattered by contaminant particles in the oil. There are ways to know the content of contaminants, or to understand it as light transmittance using a similar method.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a measuring method using the above-mentioned scattered light method, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a measuring method using the above-mentioned transmitted light method. In both figures, 1 is a measuring device for injecting the test oil 2, 3 is a light source, 4 is a pore, 5 is a photodetector consisting of a photomultiplier, and 6 is a contaminant floating in the test oil 2. It is a particle.

In the measurement method configured as described above, the contaminated test oil 2 is collected into the measuring device 1, and then the amount of light from the light source 3 is passed through the pore 4, and the light traveling straight is made to enter the measuring device 1. Then, the light is scattered by the contaminant particles 6 in the test oil 2 and becomes scattered light, but the unscattered light becomes transmitted light and travels straight as it is, exiting from the measuring device 1 and entering the photodetector 5. , measured as the amount of light. In this way, both scattered light and transmitted light are measured as light changes that depend on the particle density, size, or color of the pollutant.
By measuring the amount of scattered light in the direction of a fixed scattering angle (FIG. 3) or the amount of transmitted light that is not subjected to scattering (FIG. 4), an output containing information that depends on the amount of contaminant particles can be obtained.

In addition, by developing the above method, a sample is passed through a thin tube at a constant flow rate while light is irradiated from the side, and the particle size distribution of contaminant particles contained in oil is calculated from the degree of light blocking by contaminant particles. There are also such things.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

The conventional measuring method described above has the problem that only the total amount of impurities and water particles in oil can be detected because they are treated as contaminant particles. Further, even if pre-treatments such as separating water or dissolving water in oil are performed, they are not considered to the extent that only the particles of contaminants are to be detected.

In general, when managing oil, there is a high demand for detecting the amount of contaminants and moisture individually, and at present the only way to do this is to use a combination of equipment for measuring the amount of contaminants and moisture content, which is extremely expensive. No method has been considered to detect each of the series of operations. Furthermore, since these measuring instruments use various reagents, it is impossible to use them as they are for the total acid value measurement method specified by the Japanese Industrial Standards.

The present invention was developed to measure the amount of moisture and contaminants individually in a series of operations, which has been in high demand in the past, and is an alternative to the existing optical method for detecting the degree of oil contamination. The object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for measuring oil contaminants with great practical effect.

(Means for solving the problem) The method and device for measuring contaminants in oil according to the present invention include:
A separator for impurities or moisture contained in the oil is provided, and a series of operations is performed to measure the first light change amount due to the contaminated oil and the second light change amount due to the oil from which the contaminated oil has been removed by the separator. It has a function of individually measuring or calculating the contents of impurities and water in oil from the first and second light change amounts determined by the following.

(Function) In this invention, impurity particles and water particles suspended in a suspended state or a milky state in contaminated oil are filtered out using a filter, and the amount of change in light due to the oil before and after being filtered is Therefore, the content of impurities and the content of water are determined separately. Therefore, the content of impurities or water can be calculated by a series of measurement operations using the same sample oil.

(Example of the Invention) Hereinafter, a measuring method and an example of the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing the principle of the measuring method of the present invention.

In the figure, numerals 1 to 6 are the same as those shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 above. In FIG. 1, 7 is a contaminant particle floating in the oil, and 8 is a similar water particle.

In the system shown in Figure 1, when light is irradiated onto oil containing moisture and impurities, the light is scattered by the impurity particles 7 and water particles 8, but the light that is not partially dispersed becomes transmitted light and travels straight. The current is detected as a photoelectrically converted current by the detection unit 5, and the amount of change in light depending on the amount of moisture and contaminants is determined. This amount is defined as the above-mentioned first light change amount.

Next, the oil measured as above is guided to a filter that filters out only impurities as a contaminant separator, and after removing the amount of contaminants and leaving the oil containing only water, it is irradiated with light in the same way. to find the second light change amount. This is a measured value that correlates with moisture content.

In this way, the difference between the first and second light changes is converted into a measured value that correlates to the contaminant content in the oil.

Furthermore, if the above-mentioned contaminant separator is replaced with a filter that functions as a moisture separator to selectively adsorb moisture, the above-mentioned first light change amount is the contaminant amount, the first and second The difference in the amount of light change is a measurement value representing the moisture content.

Embodiment 1 FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an embodiment of a measuring device that is an automatic system that performs the above measurement principle through a series of measurement operations. In FIG. 2, 1a and 1b are measurement tubes for measuring the first and second light changes, respectively, and are connected to a contaminant separator 9 having a built-in filter as shown in the figure. One end of the measuring tube 1a is inserted into the oil 2 to be tested, and the oil is drained while being sucked at a predetermined draining speed by a pump 10 provided on the measuring tube 1b side. As shown in the figure, optical sensors are provided before and after the contaminant separator 9, and according to the measurement principle described above, the first amount of light change is detected by the detector 5, the second amount of light change is detected by the detector 5a, and each is detected by an amplifier. 11 , the current is amplified and sent to the arithmetic unit 12 . Arithmetic device 12
memory.

Built-in timer and hold circuit, etc.
The first and second light change amounts and the difference thereof are calculated, and the display 13 outputs the measurement results of the amount of moisture and the amount of contaminants.

Note that the same effect can be achieved by using a moisture separator as described above instead of the filter, if necessary. It goes without saying that if the oil is so contaminated that the amount of transmitted light or scattered light cannot be measured, the same measurement can be made by diluting the oil. Furthermore, as a matter of course, the method and apparatus of the present invention can easily be used to determine the total fraction of impurities and moisture.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention provides a method and an apparatus for measuring the amount of water and contaminants, which are important in terms of oil pipe rings, with a simple configuration and a series of measurement operations using the same sample. Only a small amount of sample is required,
Moreover, the measurement time can also be shortened.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing the measurement principle of this invention, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the configuration of an oil contaminant measuring device showing an embodiment of the invention, and Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing the amount of scattered light by conventional optical means. A measurement explanatory diagram, FIG. 4 is a similar explanatory diagram for measuring the amount of transmitted light. Agent: Patent Attorney Tadashi Sato Figure 1 Figure 2

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) In a method for measuring the content of moisture and impurities in oil by optical means, the first amount of light change due to the oil;
After the contaminant particles are removed by a contaminant separator, the second amount of light change due to the oil is determined, and the content of contaminants and water in the oil is determined from the first and second amounts of light change. A method for measuring contaminants in oil characterized by: (2) The method for measuring contaminants in oil according to claim 1, wherein the impurity separator is a moisture separator. (3) A device for measuring the content of moisture and contaminants in oil by optical means, which is equipped with a contaminant separator, and measures the first light change due to the oil and the contaminant particles by the contaminant separator. The second amount of light change due to the oil after removal is measured by a series of measurement operations, and the content of impurities and water in the oil is determined individually from the first and second amount of light change. A contaminant measuring device in oil characterized by having a mechanism and configuration for measuring and calculating. (4) The in-oil contaminant measuring device according to claim 3, wherein the impurity separator is a moisture separator.