The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 26, 2025
Filed:
Apr. 05, 2021
Bwxt Advanced Technologies Llc, Lynchburg, VA (US);
Ryan Scott Kitchen, Knoxville, TN (US);
Matthew Paul Levasseur, Lynchburg, VA (US);
Ryan Steven Wackerly, Barberton, OH (US);
Ross Pivovar, Lynchburg, VA (US);
BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC, Lynchburg, VA (US);
Abstract
A method inspects weld quality in-situ. The method obtains a plurality of sequenced images of an in-progress welding process and generates a multi-dimensional data input based on the plurality of sequenced images and/or one or more weld process control parameters. The parameters may include: (i) shield gas flow rate, temperature, and pressure; (ii) voltage, amperage, wire feed rate and temperature (if applicable); (iii) part preheat/inter-pass temperature; and (iv) part and weld torch relative velocity). The method generates defect probability and analytics information by applying one or more computer vision techniques on the multi-dimensional data input. The analytics information includes predictive insights on quality features of the in-progress welding process. The method then generates a 3-D visualization of one or more as-welded regions, based on the analytics information, and the plurality of sequenced images. The 3-D visualization displays the quality features for virtual inspection and/or for determining weld quality.