How to Calculate Leakage Through an Encapsulant

You can calculate leakage through an encapsulant to know precisely the amount of fluid loss. An encapsulant contains a fluid such as water inside a given reservoir by sealing off any joints present; for example, urethane can be used in the encapsulation of metal and plastic devices. The leak rate depends on the amount of fluid loss over a measured interval of time. The volume of the fluid lost is generally measured in fluid ounces per hour.

Things You'll Need

• Graduated beaker
• Stopwatch
• Calculator

Instructions

1. Place the graduated beaker beneath the leakage point in the encapsulant. Start the stopwatch as soon as fluid begins to enter the beaker.

2. Stop the stopwatch when the fluid level reaches 5.0 fluid ounces. For example, the time that passes might be 75.0 minutes.

3. Convert the time to hours by dividing by 60, since an hour contains 60 minutes. Performing this step leads to 75.0 minutes divided by 60 minutes per hour, or 1.3 hours.

4. Divide 5.0 fluid ounces by the time elapsed to obtain the leakage rate for the encapsulant in fluid ounces per hour. Completing the example, you have 5.0 fluid ounces divided by 1.3 hours, which equals 3.8 fluid ounces per hour.

References

• ResinLab: Urethane Encapsulants
• "Physics for Scientists and Engineers With Modern Physics"; Raymond A. Serwayt, et al; 2009