Patent ID: 8302454

Claim:
A method for calibrating a spectrometric leak detector for different tracing gases to be detected, the method comprising: using a defined calibration gas escaping through a test leak, said calibration gas having defined spectrometric peaks at defined mass numbers along a mass axis, each peak having an amplitude wherein the amplitudes of the peaks form a characteristic fraction distribution of the calibration gas, said fraction distribution having a maximum peak and indicating fraction factors of the peaks wherein, for each peak, a fraction factor comprises the amplitude of the peak relative to the amplitude of the maximum peak of the calibration gas, determining spectral positions of peaks of the tracing gases on the basis of known spectral positions of peaks of the tracing gas and spectral positions on the mass axis by interpolation and/or extrapolation of peaks of the calibrating gas and/or of a measured peak and a zero point along the mass axis, calibrating the measured amplitudes of the peaks of the calibration gas by averaging a deviation of the measured peak values with respect to the fraction distribution to obtain a correction factor, using the measured amplitude of at least one peak of the calibrating gas with a known leak rate for determining a device factor, and determining an amplitude of the tracing gas from the measured amplitudes of the peaks of the tracing gas and said device factor using the correction factor.