Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Inthe conventional art, there is a number of situations wher e it is necessary to test the tightness betweena pipe penetrating a plate, part icularly in applications where it is desirable to have for example a liquidon o ne side of the plate and air or other liquid/media on the other side of the plat e. Leaking in theconnection between the pipe and the plate is undesirable. Natu rally, it will be possible to introduce aliquid on one side of the plate and th en optically detect whether or not there is a leak, after which the leakmay be repaired. However, for industrial purposes, this is a very cumbersome and imprac tical manner oftesting such connections. Further, a problem arises when there i s a large number of pipes penetrating aplate member in a very small area, such that the distance between adjacent pipes is very limited. In suchsituations it may be very difficult to detect which pipe is leaking, and furthermore the repai r may also berather cumbersome.
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