Design And Construction Of Gas Leakage Detector With SMS Alerts

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The LPG can be leaked in different forms such as gaseous or liquid aspects. Generally, a given leak in the liquids are vanished due to the evaporation processes that generates a cloud of gas shown stuck on the wall or ground as it is heavier than the air. The LPG is found widely in the houses, fabrications and fuels. The researchers were struggling in 1910 to investigate the reason of why the gasoline evaporates faster. They discovered that the propane, methane, butane are gases that evaporate so fast. It is worth mentioning that the LPG and the natural gases are environmentally friendly and classified as being detected easily. These kinds of gases are kept in cylinders and can be vanished in ordinary temperature degrees. The LPG gas is considered as a mixture of butane, propane and saturated – unsaturated hydrocarbons [1, 2, 3]. The impact of the LPG on human being is extremely considerable and it can cause burns over the skin, long sleep, annoyed breathing, etc. This risky gas has several individualities such as pressure, flammability, combustion and toxicity. This project is designed to detect and monitor the leak of the gases relatively in the closed places. The module can be employed as household application to supervise and apply control action on different situations accordingly. In addition, the module can be used in the hospitals, hotels, cars and in the industries that use LPG gas as substantial applications. The detection process of the gas in this work excites multiple measurements such as alarm systems, control devices and communication systems based on the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) module [4, 5, 6].

1.1 AIM AND OBJECTIVE THE PROJECT

The main aim of this work is to design a security/alarm device that detects the presence of gases in an area, often as part of a safety system using arduino and GSM. Gas detectors can be used to detect combustible, flammable and toxic gases, and oxygen depletion.

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

One of its main purposes is to monitor an area. Gas detectors measure and indicate the concentration of certain gases in an air via different technologies. Typically employed to prevent toxic exposure and fire, gas detectors are often battery operated devices used for safety purposes. This device designed as portable or stationary (fixed) units and work by signifying high levels of gases through a series of audible and visible indicators, such as alarms and lights.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

Gas detectors can be used to detect combustible, flammable and toxic gases, and oxygen depletion. This type of device is used widely in industry and can be found in locations, such as on oil rigs, to monitor manufacture processes and emerging technologies such as photovoltaic. They may be used in firefighting.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

This device used a safe wireless module to detect a gas leakage. The module is household use application where home fires or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) are classified as the reason of the disasters. The LPG is considered as the most inflammable gases that can ignite fires even in the far distances where gas leak exists. The module can be applied in several places particularly in the fabrications that depend mainly on LPG gas to manage their works. According to the facilities offered by this work, the whole module is functionally separated to perform two tasks identified by gas leak monitoring and the precautions taken accordingly. The module reads the gas sensor in a proposed environment to discover whether gas concentration exceeds a specified range. The system will be activated once the module detects that the gas concentration is altered, and accordingly the control action turns the alarm system alongside with air puller device ON, and sends a warning SMS to a certain recipient using GSM module.

1.5 APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT

Gas detector can be found useful to detect the presence of gases in areas such as:
• industrial plants,
• refineries,
• vehicles
• Homes (kitchen)
• Or In places where the use of gas or the presence of gas can be dangerous

1.6 PROJECT MOTIVATION

The storage or distribution of any gas involves the gas being contained in vessels or pipes under pressure. Any leak in these systems will therefore result in significant amounts of gas (probably invisible) escaping into the surrounding air. What happens to the gas then depends on the nature of the gas and the immediate environment, but can pose a threat to life in three ways:
• Combustible gas can gather and reach a density at which it can ignite and cause a fireball.
• Toxic gas can cause illness, paralysis or death if inhaled.
• Any gas in sufficient quantities will displace oxygen and therefore pose a serious risk to life.

1.7 LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT

• This device requires steady power supply for effect operation. That means that it will become inactive if the mains power supply fails or the battery goes low.
• The Sensor requires quarterly calibration and do not have a long life.

1.8 PROJECT WORK ORGANISATION

The various stages involved in the development of this project have been properly put into five chapters to enhance comprehensive and concise reading. In this project thesis, the project is organized sequentially as follows:

• Chapter one of this work is on the introduction to this work. In this chapter, the background, significance, purpose, objective limitation of this work were discussed.
• Chapter two is on literature review of this work. In this chapter, all the literature pertaining to this work was reviewed.
• Chapter three is on design methodology. In this chapter all the method involved during the design and construction were discussed.
• Chapter four is on testing analysis. All testing that result accurate functionality was analyzed.
• Chapter five is on conclusion, recommendation and references.