PROCESS TO MONITOR UNWANTED FORMATION OF A POLYMER HAVING INTERNAL STRAIN BY ACOUSTIC EMISSION ANALYSIS

• Main Authors: ALCURI GUSTAVO, THORET BAUCHET JEAN PIERRE
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; Korean
• Published: 04.09.2009
• Subjects: AFTER-TREATMENT OF THE SHAPED PRODUCTS, e.g. REPAIRING; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; SHAPING OF MATERIAL IN A PLASTIC STATE, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDEDFOR; SHAPING OR JOINING OF PLASTICS; TESTING; TRANSPORTING; WORKING OF PLASTICS; WORKING OF SUBSTANCES IN A PLASTIC STATE, IN GENERAL

The present invention relates to a process to monitor unwanted formation of a polymer having internal mechanical strain wherein acoustic emission generated by said polymer formation is detected by one or more acoustic sensors attached to a piece of equipment. In a preferred embodiment the device to carry-out the process comprises : a resonant piezo-electric transducer attached to a piece of equipment, optionally a conditioner unit, connected to the previous transducer, said conditioner unit comprising means for filtering and an operational preamplifier, optionally a unit, connected to said conditioner unit, in which there is at least one adjustable threshold level (unles the conditioner unit comprises said adjustable threshold level), optionally a pulse counter connected to the conditioner unit comprising at least one adjustable threshold level. The invention is particularly useful for monitoring the unwanted popcorn polymers made from butadiene or isoprene.