Experimental study of a remote sealing method for vacuum leak.

Vacuum leak is a critical issue for all devices having vacuum system, especially for the large complex experimental facilities. They often have vacuum components integrated which are inaccessible once the assembly was finished. Therefore, if any unacceptable vacuum leaks occur on the cooling/baking channels of the vacuum components, the machine, at least partially, needs to be disassembled before the maintenance, which would cause extensive experimental program downtime and financial costs. An innovative remote sealing method has been studied to permanently repair such vacuum leaks by injecting a sealant called KH-1714 into the channels with pressurized inert gas. Three experiments, that at 10–20 m away sealing different types of leaked components (bellows, circular pipe or rectangle pipe) with leak rates at the level of 10 −6 –10 −5 Pa m 3 /s, were done to study the feasibility and reliability of the method. The details of the experiments and results were presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]