Leakage Rate from Volatile Liquid Standard Leak: An Experimental Study

Herein, we experimentally addressed leakage measurement of volatile liquid, particularly perfluorotriethylamine (C₆F₁₅N) in spacecraft sealing pipelines, by comparison technique.First, a liquid standard leak with a known leakage-rate was designed to serve as the reference-leak, in which a liquid continuously volatilizes through a tiny hole (in fixed diameter) of the small light-weighted liquid container.Next, the mass-loss, originated from continuous volatilization of the C₆F₁₅N reference-leak for 24 h, was theoretically analyzed and experimentally evaluated with high-precision electronic balance.And finally, the volatilization-rate and measurement uncertainty of the novel reference leak were derived.As shown in the calibration test, the relative expansion uncertainty was estimated to be 2.8 percent.We suggest that the newly-developed reference-leak of C₆F₁₅N be of some technological interest in leakage measurement of spacecraft sealing pipelines.