Electric heating – Metal heating – By arc
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-18
2003-06-24
Shaw, Clifford C. (Department: 1725)
Electric heating
Metal heating
By arc
C219S125100, C228S103000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06583386
ABSTRACT:
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not Applicable.
Reference to a “Computer Listing Appendix submitted on a Compact Disc”.
A Computer Program Listing Appendix of the programming language for the present invention is provided on a write-only compact disc (CD), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Two copies of the CD are provided. The CDs are labeled Copy
1
and Copy
2
. Each CD is entitled “Part Tracking Patent Impact Engineering May 29, 2001” and each CD is hereby incorporated herein by reference. Each CD, which has an IBM-PC machine format and is compatible with MS-Windows, contains the following 14 ASCII compliant files of the programming code of the arc-weld monitoring with part-tracking system of the present invention.
1. Network.cpp, which in its present format was created Apr. 10, 2001, and contains 126,980 bytes.
2. Network.h, which in its present format was created Mar. 30, 2001, contains 14,802 bytes.
3. Node.cpp, which in its present format was created May 21, 2001, contains 269,010 bytes.
4. Node.h, which in its present format was created Apr. 10, 2001, contains 27,184 bytes.
5. PartHist.cpp, which in its present format was created Jan. 24, 2001, and contains 8,890 bytes.
6. PartHistory.h, which in its present format was created Jan. 24, 2001, contains 4,386 bytes.
7. PartTrackingConfigDlg.cpp, which in its present format was created Jan. 24, 2001, contains 9,166 bytes.
8. PartTrackingConfigDlg.h, which in its present format was created Jan. 24, 2001, contains 4,564 bytes.
9. PartView.cpp, which in its present format was created Nov. 11, 2000, contains 11,439 bytes.
10. PartView.h, which in its present format was created Sep. 22, 2000, contains 3,648 bytes.
11. WkTrkDlg.cpp, which in its present format was created Dec. 11, 2000, contains 24,619 bytes.
12. WkTrkDlg.h, which in its present format was created Dec. 12, 2001, contains 3,524 bytes.
13. AdvancePartTrackingConfigDlg.cpp, which in its present format was created May 2, 2001, contains 6,000 bytes.
14. AdvancePartTrackingConfigDlg.h, which in its present format was created Jan. 24, 2001, contains 2,226 bytes.
The files are readable using an ASCII text reader such as Microsoft WordPad.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a weld monitoring system and method that monitors and automatically coordinates information on the quality of each weld in a workpiece having one or more welds. In particular, each weld in the workpiece is automatically analyzed at the time it is being made using weld sensors such as those that measure current, wire feed, voltage, and gas flow to produce information on the quality of the weld. Using this information, the welds are sorted, displayed, and logged with workpiece and weld number information which is provided to the operator in real-time and stored in a computer for access at a later time for quality control or other purposes. Therefore, the system and method enables welds of a quality less than a pre-determined quality for the weld to be identified in real-time and information concerning any particular weld to be accessed at a later time.
(2) Description of Related Art
Many high volume, complex welded assemblies are produced using manual or semi-automated production welders. The repetitive nature of these welding operations and the high production rates that are required eventually lead to welder fatigue. Therefore, missing or defective welds on these welded assemblies is a major quality assurance problem. Missing or defective welds can lead to structural failure of the welded assemblies which can be catastrophic for downstream users of these welded assemblies.
To identify defective welds, sensors that measure current, wire feed, voltage, and gas flow are used to enable the quality of a weld to be determined. The information produced by the sensors allows defective welds or welds of a quality less than a pre-determined quality to be identified. The following U.S. Patents exemplify the state of the art in controlling or monitoring the quality of welds made in a welding operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,311 to Houchens et al. discloses a method and apparatus for detecting the onset of melting in a resistance spot weld, which enables the prediction of weld quality to be determined. The method measures the weld resistance at many points during the formation of the weld, storing those resistance values, calculating a rate of change of resistance curve from the stored resistance values, locating the maximum rate of change of resistance occurring prior to the resistance peak and locating the time subsequent to the maximum rate of change that the rate of change curve reaches a specified fraction of its maximum, which time occurs at the knee of the resistance curve which approximates the onset of melting.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,546 to Iceland discloses a welding arc length control system. The system includes a power source for providing welding current, a power amplification system, a motorized welding torch assembly connected to the power amplification system, a computer, and a current pickup means. The computer is connected to the power amplification system for storing and processing arc weld current power source and to the welding torch assembly for providing weld current data to the computer. Therefore, the system maintains the desired arc length as the welding current is varied during operation, which maintains consistent weld penetration.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,510,596 to Xu et al. discloses an arc welding device apparatus for controlling an arc welder through use of a neural network in real-time. The invention also records output from an arc welding apparatus indicating whether penetration has occurred during the welding process and can also activate an alarm when penetration occurs during the arc welding process, which indicates that the weld is solid.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,932,123 to Marhofer et al. discloses a mobile automated pipeline welding and quality control system comprising a gas metal arc welding carriage and a weld data monitor and acquisition unit. The system comprises a welding machine for welding pipes and a weld monitor consisting of, inter alia, a current detector for detecting welding current applied to the welding torch, a voltage detector for detecting welding voltage, and a travel speed detector for detecting the travel speed of the welding machine. The weld monitor includes a memory, a micro-processor for successively recording the detected current, voltage, and travel speed parameters in the memory, and means for specifying the recording intervals of the parameter. The weld monitor displays one or more of the detected parameters in substantially real-time.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,029 to Choi et al. discloses a method and apparatus for controlling the quality of a resistance spot weld. The method estimates the quality of a spot weld by using a nugget penetration of the resistance spot weld and a nugget size, which are estimated by using the Hidden Markov Model method.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,140,825 to Fujii et al. discloses a method and apparatus for evaluating quality of a resistance weld. The method measures instantaneous values of welding current to determine the quality of the weld as it is being formed.
While the above methods are capable of determining the quality of a weld and present information about the quality of the weld, the above methods do not automatically track and verify a series of independent welds performed by one welder or robot on one or more workpieces in a welding operation for producing a welded assembly and present the information after the weld is made to the welder in real-time to enable the welder to take appropriate remedial action. Nor do the above methods coordinate the information from a series of welds on one or more workpieces in one or more welding operations and display the information graphically for each weld in each of the welded assemblies wherein the quality of each of the welds is displayed superimposed on an image for each of the welded assemblies, whic
Impact Engineering, Inc.
McLeod Ian C.
Shaw Clifford C.
LandOfFree
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