Appeal 2007-2911
Application 10/454,350
amendment entered after the final rejection; see Br. 2).1 We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
According to Appellants, the invention is directed to a system for
assessing quality of a spot weld, where the system includes an acoustic
probe having a plurality of ultrasonic transducers arranged in a two-
dimensional array, an excitation element, and a controller (Br. 3). A copy of
independent claim 15 is reproduced below:
15. A system for assessing quality of a spot weld comprising:
an acoustic probe having a plurality of ultrasonic transducers arranged
in a two dimensional array and adapted to be positioned on a spot weld
under test, each transducer capable of generating periodic ultrasonic signals
for transmission into the spot weld;
an excitation element coupled to the array and causing each transducer
to send an ultrasonic signal toward the spot weld; and
a controller coupled to the acoustic probe and the excitation element
for directing transmission of the ultrasonic signals and for receiving
responses therefrom, the controller operative to measure two dimensional
profiles of front and back indentation marks of the spot weld, to correct
transducer responses in accordance with the profiles, to recognize a subset of
the responses as being reflected from delamination areas associated with the
spot weld and to separate the subset from a remainder of the responses, to
measure an attenuation factor for each of the remainder of the responses,
to recognize a stick weld area and a weld nugget area using the attenuation
factors, and to present a two dimensional image of delamination, stick weld
and weld nugget areas of the spot weld.
The Examiner has relied on the following prior art references as
evidence of unpatentability:
Perryman US 6,072,144 Jun. 06, 2000
Ptchelintsev US 6,546,803 Apr. 15, 2003
1 We refer to and cite from the “Supplemental Appeal Brief” dated
Aug. 29, 2006.
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013