Abstract
This defensive disclosure, published under The Prior Art Project, places into the public domain a family of pump diaphragms that report their own condition, together with the electronics, interconnects, signal processing, and control actions that use that report. Conductive-network diaphragm sensing is old and freely usable; this disclosure acknowledges the expired and abandoned art (Mantell 1984, Gore 1995, Freudenberg 1999, Wanner 2003, Rosemount 2005, Fisher 2007) and adds to it.
The additions disclosed here include: two or more sensing layers buried at known, different depths, whose sequential tripping yields a measured wear-through or crack-growth rate and an extrapolated time to breach; interrogation synchronized to the pump controller’s own stroke reference, so that per-stroke amplitude, phase, harmonic content, and hysteresis are extracted with high immunity to temperature drift and noise; stroke verification that compares commanded strokes with strokes the diaphragm actually made; damage accounting that applies measured per-stroke strain to a fatigue model; discrimination among crack severance, fluid ingress, and chemical permeation by their different electrical signatures; orientation-free rim terminations; insulated gasket-form contact rings, insulated head-bolt electrodes, center-path conduction, and contactless resonant or RFID interrogation; diaphragm-borne identity and life records that follow the part between pumps; separate retrofit sensing carriers; and staged controller actions including derating, head switching, and pre-breach shutdown. Materials, dimensions, loadings, frequencies, and methods are given in ranges so that a person of ordinary skill can practice every embodiment. Thirty explicitly disclosed combinations and a fencing statement are included.
Applications include metering, dosing, and chemical-injection pumps (including solar-powered remote wellsite units), air-operated double-diaphragm pumps, diaphragm vacuum pumps and compressors, and diaphragm valves, regulators, accumulators, and dampeners.
Patent status: No patent application has been filed covering the subject matter of this disclosure, and the author does not intend to seek patent protection for it. The subject matter is dedicated to the public. Also published on Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23771528 (concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23771527).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Sumrall, Ernest Newton, "Self-Reporting Pump Diaphragms: An Open Defensive Disclosure of Embedded Conductive-Network Sensing, Stroke-Synchronous Interrogation, Multi-Depth Staged Pre-Breach Warning, and Retrofit Interconnects for Diaphragm Pumps, Compressors, and Fluid-Control Devices", Technical Disclosure Commons, ()
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/12605