Vibration and flow actuated valve shutoff system
OwnerMark Reymaninventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automatically actuated regulation system for a natural gas pipeline having flow control unit, a vibration sensor, a gas flow meter, a trigger unit, and a microprocessor. The microprocessor actuates the flow control unit when two conditions are met. First, there must be a vibration which surpasses a predetermined threshold. Second, flow in the natural gas pipeline must have increased over the flow rate before the vibration.
Claims38
An automatically actuated regulation system for gas and other fluids flowing in a pipeline comprising:
- a microprocessor configured to control said regulation system;
- a flow control unit coupled to said microprocessor, said flow control unit configured to regulate the flow through said pipeline when activated;
- a vibration sensor coupled to said microprocessor, said sensor configured to determine seismic activity of the earth in the vicinity of said system, and generate a vibration indication signal corresponding to the amplitude of said seismic activity;
- a gas flow meter coupled to said microprocessor, said meter configured to provide a flow signal corresponding to the measure of gas flow through said pipeline;
- a trigger unit, said trigger unit coupled to said flow control unit and configured to activate said flow control unit;
- and
- said trigger unit activating said flow control unit when
- said vibration indication signal is larger than a first predetermined threshold value, and
- said measure of flow signal is larger than a second threshold value.
An automatically actuated regulation system for gas and other fluids flowing in a pipeline comprising:
- a microprocessor configured to control said regulation system;
- a flow control unit coupled to said microprocessor, said flow control unit configured to regulate the flow through said pipeline when activated;
- a vibration sensor coupled to said microprocessor, said sensor configured to determine seismic activity of the earth in the vicinity of said system, and generate a vibration indication signal in response to said seismic activity;
- a gas flow meter coupled to said microprocessor, said meter configured to provide a flow signal corresponding to the measure of gas flow through said pipeline;
- a trigger unit, said trigger unit coupled to said flow control unit and configured to activate said flow control unit;
- and
- said trigger unit activating said flow control unit when
- said vibration indication signal is generated, and
- said measure of gas flow signal is larger than a threshold value.
An automatically actuated regulation system for a gas pipeline comprising:
- a vibration sensor that generates a vibration signal in response to seismic activity in the vicinity of said regulation system;
- a gas flow meter coupled to said gas pipeline that is configured to generate a gas flow signal corresponding to the flow of gas traveling through said gas pipeline;
- a trigger unit coupled to said vibration sensor and said gas flow meter and configured to generate a trigger signal, when said vibration signal is larger than a vibration threshold value, and when said gas flow signal is larger than a gas flow threshold signal;
- and
- a flow control unit coupled to said trigger unit, said flow control unit configured to regulate the flow through said pipeline when activated in response to said trigger signal.
A method for automatically regulating the gas flow through a gas pipeline by, which comprises:
- measuring gas flow in a pipeline;
- measuring vibration in the vicinity of said pipeline, and providing a vibration indication signal;
- measuring gas flow after it is determined that value of said vibration indication signal exceeds a first predetermined threshold;
- comparing gas flow, before value of said vibration indication signal exceeds said first predetermined threshold, to gas flow, after value of said vibration indication signal exceeds said first predetermine threshold;
- and
- stopping the flow of gas when the gas flow, after value of said vibration indication signal exceeds said first predetermined threshold, exceeds a second threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.