Electric heating – Metal heating – By arc
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-10
2004-03-16
Shaw, Clifford C. (Department: 1725)
Electric heating
Metal heating
By arc
C219S136000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06707003
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method and a system for diagnosing and/or solving, in particular remotely, a given technical problem likely to arise before, during or after a heat treatment operation on metals, in particular in the welding field.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
To make the invention easier to understand, the term “welding field” is used in its generic sense and therefore covers, within the context of the invention, actual welding processes, such as MIG (Metal Inert Gas), MAG (Metal Active Gas), TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas), plasma, submerged-arc or electrode welding, but also similar or related metal heat treatment processes, such as cutting processes, especially oxycutting or plasma-arc, laser-beam or electron-beam cutting; thermal marking processes, especially plasma or laser marking; and thermal spraying, especially plasma-arc spraying.
At the present time, the technical knowledge in the welding field is disseminated in many published documents, in general by specialist institutions, such as the AWS (American Welding Society), ASM (American Society for Metals) and the TWI (The Welding Institute).
Although this literature is generally complete and can answer many questions that welding practitioners may pose, it does have the drawback, however, of being incorporated into reference works ranging from a few hundred to several thousands of pages.
Consequently, it may be readily understood that, given the volume that these reference works represent, it is often very difficult to quickly find therein a solution to a given technical problem arising either during a welding operation, or before or after such an operation.
Moreover, the structure of the information is in conventional reference works of the “literature” type, that is to say that information given in a chapter of the reference work or document consulted is in general only developed completely once in one part of that reference work, bibliographic references being used in the other chapters.
This has the advantage of not burdening the reference works but often requires the reader to consult, at best, several chapters or, at worst, several different reference works or documents in order to obtain complete information about one particular subject.
It may be readily understood that this current procedure makes the search for a quick and effective solution to the technical problem arising in the welding field even more difficult, or even does not always allow such a solution to be found.
In parallel with this observation, the development of information technology, especially with tools such as hypertext links and Internet or Intranet networks, makes it possible to link together extremely large bodies of information and above all to facilitate access thereto.
However, the great majority of tools for these networks are constructed in a manner very similar to that described for technical documentation of the reference work type, that is to say they are constructed in a document management mode.
Consequently, although a person searching for information admittedly has the possibility of rapidly consulting a very large number of documents, insofar as they are referenced, he must, however, here again extract from them the particular information of interest to him.
This results in often expensive and not very effective on-line navigation for someone searching quickly for a particular technical solution to a precise problem that has arisen.
In other words, a welding operator having to very quickly find some given technical information allowing him to solve a technical welding problem that has arisen in a workshop, in a factory or on another site often far from the information source, is presently confronted with another technical problem, namely that of the effectiveness in the search for the information or technical solution that can be applied to solve his welding or similar problem as quickly as possible.
Put another way, the problem that arises is to be able to find, quickly and effectively, the most appropriate technical solution or answer to the precise technical question that has arisen and to do so, in particular directly on the site where he is carrying out his welding operation, so as to reduce as far as possible the time wasted in searching for this information and therefore to decrease the loss of productivity associated, for example, with momentarily stopping the welding or similar process in which the given technical problem has arisen.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention therefore to provide a method of making it easier for a welding operator to solve a given technical problem and to find thereby a solution or the most appropriate solution and to do so while minimizing the time needed to solve this problem and therefore by reducing the loss of productivity likely to occur because of this technical problem.
The invention therefore relates to a method for diagnosing and/or solving, in particular remotely, a technical problem likely to arise before, during or after the operation of a heat treatment process, comprising the steps of:
(a) indication and/or selection by the user of a type of heat treatment process implemented or to be implemented;
(b) indication and/or selection by the user of at least one type of technical problem to be solved arising or likely to arise during implementation of the type of heat treatment process of step (a);
(c) indication and/or selection by the user of at least one parameter, preferably several parameters, relating to the configuration of the said heat treatment process of step (a);
(d) processing of at least some of the indications or selections made by the user in steps (a), (b) and (c);
(e) proposal to the user of at least some information relating to at least one modification or at least one adjustment to be made to at least one configuration parameter of the said heat treatment process so as to solve, at least partly, the type of technical problem of step (b).
According to another aspect, the invention also relates to a method for determining, setting, adjusting and/or modifying at least one parameter of a heat treatment process, before or during implementation of the said heat treatment process by a user, comprising the steps of:
(a′) indication and/or selection by the user of a type of heat treatment process implemented or to be implemented;
(b′) indication and/or selection by the user of at least one parameter relating to the configuration of the said heat treatment process, that has to be or is likely to be adjusted, modified or set, before or during implementation of the heat treatment process of step (a′);
(c′) processing of at least some of the indications or selections made by the user in steps (a′) and (b′);
(d′) proposal to the user of at least some information relating to at least one modification or at least one setting to be made of at least the said configuration parameter of the said heat treatment process.
Depending on the case, the method of the invention may comprise one or more of the following features:
it includes the additional step (f) of displaying, storing, printing, transmitting, interpreting and/or exporting at least some information obtained in step (e) or in step (d′);
it includes the additional step (g) of modifying or setting at least one configuration parameter, preferably several configuration parameters, of the said heat treatment process according to at least some information obtained in step (e) or in step (d′);
in step (a) or (a′), the type of heat treatment process implemented or to be implemented is chosen or selected from the group formed by cutting processes, welding processes, marking processes, heat spraying processes and combinations thereof;
in steps (a), (b) and/or (c) or (a′) and/or (b′), the indication or the selection is made by the user via data or information acquisition and/or selection means, for example the data acquisition and/or selection means may comprise a computer keyboard or the like, a m
L'Air Liquide - Societe Anonyme a Directoire et Conseil de
Shaw Clifford C.
Young & Thompson
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