Nondispersive Infrared Gas Analyzer and Gas Sample Chamber Used Therein

The present invention relates to the field of gas analyzers; and more specifically, to gas analyzers of the type know as NDIR (nondispersive infrared) gas analyzers and the sample chamber used therein.

It has been known in the prior art to use NDIR technology for gas analyzers due to the performance of such analyzers to be highly specific, sensitive and reliable. These gas analyzers use an optical waveguide or chamber containing the gas to be measured positioned between a light source and a detector. The light emitted from the light source travels through the chamber, and the gas contained therein, until it reaches the detector element for indicating gas concentrate levels. The major drawback of the past NDIR gas measurement devices has been their expense and complexity.

One attempt to overcome these difficulties with NDIR devices has been to use a diffusion-type gas chamber. U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,150 to Burough et al. issued Nov. 24, 1987 discloses such a device using a porous material tube for the gas sample chamber. Such a chamber allows the gas to be measured to flow through the porous walls. Another example as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,332 to Wong issued Nov. 17, 1992 uses a gas chamber with filtered apertures contained therein, and a highly specularly reflective inner surface. The use of this diffusion-type chamber eliminates the need for expensive optics, mechanical choppers and a gas supply and discharge means for adding to and taking away sample gas from the chamber.

These analyzers with the diffusion-type gas chamber, however, still suffer from generally high cost and complexity as well as reliability difficulties such as drift problems caused by variations in light source intensity and variations in environmental conditions such as ambient temperature.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved NDIR gas analyzer which solves the drift problems caused by environmental and operational variations.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an NDIR gas analyzer which is compact in size, reliable in operation and economical to produce.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, an improved NDIR gas analyzer uses a reference channel with additional detector to accurately reflect changes in environmental and operational parameters.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an improved NDIR gas analyzer uses a common signal and optical gas chamber for both gas channel and reference channel in which radiation is scattered in the chamber in a uniform manner to both a gas detector and a reference detector to allow for accurate compensation for changes in environmental and operational parameters.

In accordance with still another aspect of this invention, an improved NDIR analyzer; and specifically the gas sample chamber used therein, requires no special complex filtering system for the gas to be analyzed.

In accordance with yet still another aspect of this invention, an improved gas sample chamber with an optical reflective surface with a constantly changing profile is provided to greatly enhance optical scattering of radiation falling on the optical surface.

Briefly described, the gas analyzer of the present invention comprises a nondispersive infrared gas analyzer for indicating the concentration of a selected gas comprising a source of radiation, a gas sample chamber adapted to receive gas and positioned to receive radiation from said source of radiation, said gas sample chamber of a generally elongated tube shape with two ends, a hollow central area, and an outer wall having an inner and outer surface, said inner surface of the outer wall acting as an optical reflective surface for radiation from said source comprising a plurality of distinct raised portions of a varying height from an average plane of the surface of the outer wall surface so as to produce a homogeneous, dispersed distribution of radiation from the source through the gas sample chamber, and detector means for producing a signal representative of the concentration of the selected gas having at least one gas sensor and a reference sensor, said sensors each receiving the same radiation in the absence of said selected gas to be analyzed.

Other objects, advantages and details of the invention appear in the following detailed description of proposed embodiments of the invention, the detailed description referring to the drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevational view showing the major components of a gas analyzer in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a front elevational view showing a detector means of a gas analyzer in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2a is a side elevational view of FIG. 2;

FIG. 2b is a cross-sectional view cut along line 2b--2b of FIG. 2;

FIG. 3 is a cross-section view of a gas sample chamber of a gas analyzer in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3a is an enlarged view of a portion of the surface of an inner wall of the gas chamber of FIG. 3;

FIG. 4 diagrammatically shows a typical radiation ray trace of radiation in a gas sample chamber in accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 4a is an enlarged view of a portion of FIG. 4.

As shown in FIG. 1, a gas analyzer 10 of the present invention includes a source of radiation 12, a gas chamber 14 and a detector means 16. The detector means 16 produces an electrical signal that represents the intensity of the radiation falling on it. This electrical signal is applied to an electronic circuit 18 that converts it to a signal that represents the concentration of the gas to be measured. Electrical circuits of this type are well known in the art such a circuit using a substraction algorithm or a division algorithm.

In accordance with this invention, the source of radiation 12 is typically a small incandescent lamp that produces visible light and infrared radiation, and is positioned at one end of the gas chamber 14. A preferred source is a hot tungsten filament lamp placed in a parabolic reflector. It has been found to be particularly useful if the parabolic reflector is "defocused" to produce a ring of high intensity radiation in a generally doughnut shape instead of being focused from one point. That is, the radiation from the source is preferably directed so as to best ensure contact with the chamber inner wall, and not transverse the chamber without reflecting one or more times off the wall of the chamber. This feature allows for the use of a chamber of shorter length and aids in the formation of a homogeneous radiation output delivered to the detectors along with the design of the gas chamber 14 which is discussed in further detail below.

In accordance with this invention, the detector means 16 as shown in FIG. 2, has at least one sensing detector 22 and a reference detector 24 mounted on the surface of a substrate 26 such as a printed circuit board. This printed circuit board with detectors is positioned at any desired location in the optical path of the radiation from the source, but it is important that the sensing detector and the reference detector see the same radiation in the absence of the selected gas to be analyzed. One preferred design would have detectors 22, 24 positioned at the one end of gas chamber 14 adjacent each other opposite the end of the chamber containing radiation source 12. The detector members 22, 24 convert heat/light energy into an electric signal by changing capacitance or resistive properties, and should be as identical as possible. It has been found advantageous to use a pyroelectric type detector such as a 405 model made by Eltec Instruments. Associated with each gas sensing detector (for indicating the presence of the gas to be detected) is a narrow pass band filter 28 (see FIG. 2c) placed in front of the detector in the optical path between the source and detector so that the detector receives mainly radiation of a wave length that is strongly absorbed by the gas whose presence and/or concentration is to be determined. Associated with the reference detector 24 is a different narrow pass band filter 30 preferably with a center pass band close to that of the filter used with the sensing detector 22. This filter is not to be affected by the presence of gas detected by detector 22, and with detector 24 is used to be able to cancel the effects caused by variation in source intensity as well as variations in environmental conditions such as ambient temperature. This means that reference detector 24 with filter 30 must see or track the same background signal that gas detector 22 with filter 28 sees to be totally effective. The detectors 22, 24 supply a signal to electrical circuit 18.

In accordance with this invention, gas chamber 14 as shown in FIG. 3 has a generally tubular shape being open at both ends with a hollow center area. It has been found desirable to have a conical shaped tubular gas chamber 14 to increase the homogenation of the radiation signal supplied to detector means 16 by providing a greater variety of possible incident angles as the radiation travels along the chamber and to provide greater room for positioning sensors 22, 24. Gas chamber 14 has an outer wall 32 with an outer surface 34 and an inner optically reflective surface 36. Typically, the outer wall has a generally constant wall thickness except as provided by a textured inner wall surface as discussed below. Such a chamber can be economically produced by joining two halves of an injection molded polymeric material such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) to form the tubular shape. There is no need to specifically seal these halves when joining them together or to generally be concerned with a sealed device. Typically, one or more apertures 38 are provided in gas chamber outer wall 32 to allow for the ingress and egress of gas to the gas chamber. No special complex filtering system is needed to be used in the apertures 38.

As mentioned above, inner surface 36 of gas chamber 14 serves as the reflective optical surface for the gas analyzer 10 from the radiation source 12 to the detector means 16. This chamber optical surface provides the function as the common reflective surface from the common light source to both the gas sensing detector 22 and the reference detector 24 for the gas analyzer. This means that a sensing channel functionally includes radiation source 12, inner optical surface 36 and gas detector 22 with filter 28 and a reference channel functionally includes radiation source 12, inner optical surface 36 and reference detector 24 with filter 30. There is no need for a separate optical reflective surface (waveguide) for the gas sensing channel and the reference channel; and in fact, it is desirable to use the same chamber to provide a uniform disperse radiation to the detectors.

A further requirement of inner optical reflective surface 36 in the present invention is that the surface has a constantly changing irregular profile to greatly enhance optical scattering of radiation falling on the optical surface. Such a surface is preferably a continuously curved (textured) surface with a plurality of joined raised features or portions 40 of varying heights (see FIG. 3a) from the surface of the inner surface of the outer wall of the gas chamber. This surface will provide that radiation from source 12 transversing the chamber will not have the same, or nearly the same, angle of reflections as measured from the normal to the outside wall surface 34 of the chamber as a specularly reflective surface would provide (see FIGS. 4 and 4a). Consequently, this surface is not adapted to produce nondistorted image reproduction, and in fact, will provide for a dispersed totally distorted image/radiation output to the detectors. This feature is very important when using a reference channel/detector to assure that the gas detector and reference detector "see" the same background radiation.

In practice, for radiation in the 2 to 5 micron range, the plurality of features generally need to have a height of 0.010 to 0.030 of an inch from the base surface of the inner wall to the top of the surface of the feature and an average feature size (when viewed looking toward the surface of the outer wall at a normal direction) of 0.02 to 0.13 of an inch. This feature, height and size will vary for different lengths of radiation; and thus, will be preselected for the particular gas to be measured. Such a textured optical surface can be easily put into the mold used to produce the tubular gas chamber by etching techniques. It is preferred that this textured surface is metalized (not shown) as is known in the art with a metal such as aluminum which in turn can be coated with a thin polymer coating such as polyethylene to protect against oxidation.

It should be noted that although preferred embodiments of the invention have been described by way of illustrating the invention, the invention includes all modifications and equivalents of the disclosed embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.