Research of Electrocapacitive Sensor for Detection of Leakages in Flow System Aboard Micro-satellite

The problem of reliability enhancement of power plants for micro-satellites is related to the need of assessing their technical state during continuous operation in space. The paper deals with an advanced method of calculating liquid consumption aboard a spacecraft. Electro-capacity meter in the oxidant and fuel pipelines as well as in on-board systems is proposed to be used as a primary transducer. The main advantage of this method is the small size of the sensor, lack of movable parts in it and ability to detect small liquid leaks. All these factors are very important for micro-satellite instrumental equipment. To verify the proposed method an experimental setup based on the measurement of fluid consumption in the capacitive measuring cell was made. With its help experimental dependence between the amount of fluid flow and the change in the rate of discharge of measuring capacitor in capacitive cell was obtained. The main goal of this article is to confirm the possibility of practical application of electro capacitive meter for measuring dielectric liquids consumption. Methods of increasing sensitivity of capacitance flow meter by using additional resistance and capacitance in the structure of primary transducer are considered as well.