Systems and methods for analyzing data in a non-destructive testing system

• US 9,217,999 B2
• Filed: 01/22/2013
• Issued: 12/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Baker Hughes, a GE Company, LLC (Baker Hughes Company)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Domke, Michael Christopher, Messinger, Jason Howard, Soorianarayanan, Sekhar, Lambdin, Thomas Eldred, Sbihli, Scott Leo
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US13/747,449
• Publication Number:
  US 20140208163A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,064 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/00 Testing or monitoring of control systems or parts thereof monitoring of programme-control systems G05B19/048, G05B19/406
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0208 characterized by the configuration of the monitoring system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance

Abstract

A collaboration system may include a non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection device that may communicate with at least one other computing device via a computing network. The computing network may communicatively couple a plurality of computing devices and the NDT inspection device may acquire inspection data, establish a communication connection to the at least one other computing device, and send the data to the at least one other computing device. There, the at least one other computing device may analyze the data. After the data is analyzed, the NDT inspection device may receive the analyzed data from the at least one other computing device.

Claims

1. A collaboration system, comprising:

a non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection device configured to communicate with at least one other computing device via a computing network, wherein the computing network is configured to communicatively couple a plurality of computing devices and wherein the NDT inspection device is configured to;

acquire inspection data;

establish a communication connection to the at least one other computing device;

continuously send the data to the at least one other computing device, wherein the at least one other computing device is configured to analyze the data; and

receive the analyzed data from the at least one other computing device.

2. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the inspection data comprises raw data.

3. The collaboration system of claim 2, wherein the raw data comprises ultrasound data, eddy current inspection data, radiography data, image data, video data, audio data, or any combination thereof.

4. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the NDT inspection device is configured to send an indication of one or more algorithms to the at least one other computing device, wherein the data is analyzed by the at least one other computing device using the one or more algorithms.

5. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the at least one other computing device is a cloud computing network comprising one or more processors configured to analyze the data.

6. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the at least one other computing device is a server, a desktop, a laptop, a mobile device, or a combination thereof, comprising one or more processors configured to analyze the data.

7. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the at least one other computing device is configured to perform one or more iterations of data analysis on the data, and to transmit results of each iteration to the NDT device.

8. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the at least one other computing device is configured to analyze the data as it is received.

9. The collaboration system of claim 1, wherein the NDT inspection device is configured to receive one or more reports from the at least one other computing device, wherein the one or more reports are generated based on the analyzed data.

10. A computing device comprising program instructions configured to:

receive data that has been acquired using one or more non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection devices;

identify metadata associated with the data, wherein the metadata comprises information that corresponds to an asset being inspected using the one or more NDT inspection devices;

organize the data based on the metadata; and

store the organized data in a memory.

11. The device of claim 10, wherein the information comprises one or more methods and/or inspection protocols being used to inspect the asset, one or more measurements associated with the asset, one or more component identifications that may be part of the asset, or any combination thereof.

12. The device of claim 10, wherein the organized data is stored on the computing device, a database configured to couple to the computing device via a computing network, or any combination thereof.

13. The device of claim 10, wherein the data is organized based on a respective fleet in which the asset is associated with.

14. The device of claim 10, wherein the program instructions are configured to modify the received data such that a provider of the data is anonymous.

15. The device of claim 10, wherein the program instructions are configured to analyze the organized data to determine one or more trends associated with the asset, operational life information associated with the asset, maximum and minimum parameters associated with the asset, or any combination thereof.

16. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions configured to:

receive signals from one or more inspection sensors as raw data;

transmit the raw data at a first time to one or more computing devices for a data analysis, wherein the raw data is analyzed using automatic defect recognition technology; and

receive the data analysis from the one or more computing devices at a second time.

17. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the one or more computing devices comprises a cloud computing network comprising one or more processors configured to analyze the raw data.

18. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein a difference between the second time and the first time is less than between 1 second and 1 minute.

19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the raw data is analyzed using one or more data analysis tools configured to analyze the data for one or more measurements associated with an asset being inspected by the one or more NDT inspection devices, assisted defect recognition in the asset, disposition information on the asset, and any combination thereof.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the raw data comprises ultrasound data, eddy current inspection data, radiography data, image data, video data, audio data, or any combination thereof.