抄録
This paper reports a sensor for the plant inspections to detect leaking vapor. Plants are usually inspected by patrolling inspectors. It requires high level skills to selectively detect abnormal phenomena occurring in various types of equipment under the complicated environments. In this research, we developed a remote detecting sensor for the vapor leaking from piping, which is one of the priority control items inside plants. The basic principle of the sensor is specifically to sense the scattered light when laser beam is illuminated on the vapor. It is also discovered in our basic experiments that there is big difference in the polarization property between the light scattered by vapor and surface structures inside plants. The sensor can discriminate the light scattered by vapor from other types of scattered light utilizing the difference of the polarization property, then detecting the light scattered by vapor only. A prototype model is fabricated for substantiating the basic property of leaking vapor detection. As a result, it is confirmed that the prototype model not only has sufficient detecting capability, but can selectively detect vapor only. In conclusion, it is confirmed that the developed sensor satisfies the requirements for the plant inspection sensors, and has sufficient capability for practical usage.
