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Helium Leak Testing

Trybar is now offering helium leak testing.

Helium leak detection using a mass spectrometer is extremely sensitive, able to detect leaks as small as 10—12 mbar.l/s.

To give this some context, with a pressure difference of 1 bar, a leak rate of 10—12 mbar.l/s corresponds to a gas loss of about 0.1cm³ in 3,000 years…

There are broadly two methods of testing:

Vacuum Test

One side of the device to be tested is immersed in helium, and the other side is connected to the mass spectrometer, which pulls a hard vacuum and detects any helium leaking through the test item.

This is the most sensitive test and provides the total leak through the test item, but doesn’t provide any information on the exact location of the leak. To do this, one side of the test item is connected to the mass spectrometer, but this time the unit is carefully “sprayed” bit by bit with helium until a leak is found.

Sniffer Test

One side of the test item is pressurized with helium, and a probe or “sniffer” is used to find a leak.