Water leakage monitoring apparatus

• US 6,404,343 B1
• Filed: 06/23/2000
• Issued: 06/11/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Advanced Circuit Technology, Aqus Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: ACT LSI, Inc., Aqus Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Abe, Hiroshi, Andou, Fumio
• Primary Examiner(s): TRIEU, VAN THANH
• Application Number:
  US09/599,727
• Time in Patent Office: 718 Days
• Field of Search: 340/603, 340/604, 340/605, 340/609, 340/855.6, 340/856.3, 340/856.4, 73/405.A, 735/92, 735/97, 735/98
• US Class Current: 340/605
• CPC Class Codes: G01M 3/243 for pipes

Abstract

A water leakage detecting apparatus is capable of detecting water leakage of a water pipe precisely and at low cost. The water leakage monitoring apparatus includes vibration/electric converter for converting an acoustic vibration transmitted to a water pipe into an electrical signal. A signal discriminator processes an output signal of the vibration/electric converter to detect a signal of a predetermined band being held below a predetermined level continuously beyond a continuing condition to generate a sound interruption detection signal. A counter counts the number of occurrences of the sound interruption detection signal.

Claims

1. A leakage monitoring apparatus comprising:

a vibration/electric converter operable to convert an acoustic vibration transmitted to a pipe into an electrical signal;

a signal discriminator operable to process the electrical signal of said vibration/electric converter for detecting a signal of a predetermined band being held below a predetermined level continuously beyond a continuing condition to generate a sound interruption detection signal which indicates a probability that no leakage occurs in the pipe; and

a counter operable to count a number of occurrences of the sound interruption detection signal to obtain a counted value which indicates the probability that no leakage occurs in the pipe.

2. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a display operable to output a display the counted value of said counter.

3. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a signal output operable to output the counted value as a data signal.

4. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a manual reset operable to reset said counter in response to a manual switch operation.

5. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a timer circuit operable to measure a time; and

an automatic reset operable to store the counted value of said counter in a predetermined memory area in predetermined monitoring cycles and further operable to reset said counter.

6. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 4, further comprising:

a timer circuit operable to measure a time; and

an automatic reset operable to store the counted value of said counter in a predetermined memory area in predetermined monitoring cycles and further operable to reset said counter.

7. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a timer circuit operable to measure a time;

leakage judgment means for judging whether or not leakage is occurring based on a number of times of occurrences of the sound interruption detection signal in predetermined monitoring cycles;

a judgment result storage operable to store a judgment result of said leakage judgment means for the predetermined monitoring cycles in a predetermined memory area; and

a judgment result output operable to output the judgment result stored in said judgment result storage as a display output or as a data signal.

8. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a timer circuit operable to measure a time;

leakage judgment means for judging that leakage is not occurring when a number of occurrences of the sound interruption detection signal is greater than or equal to a predetermined number of occurrences, and for judging that leakage is occurring when the number of occurrences of the sound interruption detection signal is less than the predetermined number of occurrences;

a judgment result storage operable to store a judgment result of said leakage judgment means for predetermined cycles in a predetermined memory area; and

a judgment result output operable to output the judgment result stored in said judgment result storage as a display output or a data signal.

9. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a timer circuit operated constantly, said timer circuit being operable to measure a time; and

an intermittent operation controller operated constantly together with said timer circuit, said intermittent operation controller being operable to enable other circuits by intermittently supplying an operation power for the other circuits based on a predetermined time schedule as a monitoring cycle.

10. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 4, further comprising:

a timer circuit operated constantly, said timer circuit being operable to measure a time; and

an intermittent operation controller operated constantly together with said timer circuit, said intermittent operation controller being operable to enable other circuits by intermittently supplying an operation power for the other circuits based on a predetermined time schedule as a monitoring cycle.

11. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 5, further comprising:

a timer circuit operated constantly, said timer circuit being operable to measure a time; and

an intermittent operation controller operated constantly together with said timer circuit, said intermittent operation controller being operable to enable other circuits by intermittently supplying an operation power for the other circuits based on a predetermined time schedule as a monitoring cycle.

12. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 6, further comprising:

a timer circuit operated constantly, said timer circuit being operable to measure a time; and

an intermittent operation controller operated constantly together with said timer circuit, said intermittent operation controller being operable to enable other circuits by intermittently supplying an operation power for the other circuits based on a predetermined time schedule as a monitoring cycle.

13. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 9, further comprising a controller operable to interrupt operation of the monitoring cycle at a time of detection of the sound interruption detection signal a predetermined number of times in a certain monitoring cycle to thereby halt the monitoring cycle.

14. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 10, further comprising a controller operable to interrupt operation of the monitoring cycle at a time of detection of the sound interruption detection signal a predetermined number of times in a certain monitoring cycle to thereby halt the monitoring cycle.

15. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 11, further comprising a controller operable to interrupt operation of the monitoring cycle at a time of detection of the sound interruption detection signal a predetermined number of times in a certain monitoring cycle to thereby halt the monitoring cycle.

16. A leakage monitoring apparatus as set forth in claim 12, further comprising a controller operable to interrupt operation of the monitoring cycle at a time of detection of the sound interruption detection signal a predetermined number of times in a certain monitoring cycle to thereby halt the monitoring cycle.