Improved visual inspection process for welds

The Challenge Owner undertakes significant amounts of welding during the manufacture of new equipment and the maintenance of equipment and assets. Welding takes place in factory-type environments and outdoors, at fixed-premises and mobile environments. Visual inspection of weld quality and integrity is carried out by welders and independent inspectors however the information generated by this method is of limited value. The challenge is to inspect welds more quickly and objectively to produce data that can be used to inform production and maintenance processes. Any solution must be highly portable, precise and accurate.

Opportunity

Challenge opens

02/09/2019

Challenge closes

18/10/2019

Benefit

Background

This challenge applies across the client’s asset base and operations and is related to any steel fabrications.

Currently welding takes place both in factory type environments and outdoors, in on-site and in mobile situations. At the moment the weld will be inspected at the time of manufacture; the specification allows for inspection visually and by the welder but there will be little or no record created from this methodology. An inspector may also undertake a visual inspection to verify the quality but again, data collected is limited.

The welds can be on heavy sheet metals which require long welding times. In some cases, the cooling can create delays if the checking needs to be contact-based.

Visual Inspections of critical welds will also take place during operation. To allow this to be done, welds can be cleaned or ground to show faults more clearly, this can be particularly hard when the weld is painted or in a location of limited access. For many applications a record of inspection will be taken and filed for regulation purposes, but again there will be little or no trending data generated by this process. 

Being a manual and subjective process, the inspections are currently both time consuming and potentially inconsistent in terms of quality. Therefore, the client is looking for solutions that can improve upon the current process and provide a highly portable method of checking welds in a more consistent and time effective manner. The checking would also allow for data related to quality being collected and stored as proof of quality if ever there is a problem.

Rationale:

1. Improved quality assurance and safety

2. Reduced inspection and maintenance time and costs

3. Ability to hold trend data and improve inspection and weld quality using data

The challenge owner is actively looking for solutions that will;

1. Inspect welds, both new and/or existing,  in a more efficient manner

2. Be highly portable, probably hand held, consider download on charging stand

3. Enable storage and analysis of records/data

4. Be usable in a wide variety of environments and on varied fabrication types


Whilst not limiting the technologies from solution providers, it is expected that solutions would consider innovations from some of the following areas:  

- Welding Inspection/Quality specialists from all industries

   - Infrastructure

   - Engineering/Fabricators

   - Oil and Gas

   - Offshore wind

   - Marine Engineering

   - Nuclear

   - Automotive

   - Universities and specialist research organisations

   - Industrial inspection providers

   - Photonic inspection companies

   - Visual as well as heat source


The challenge owner will not consider solutions that involve: 

   - Anything that cannot be operated in a variety of environments

   - Anything that is not portable and easily used by one person

There may be difficulties with Cloud access from some locations and so download of data may need to be from a fixed system.


Rewards and Benefits

Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to pitch to the Challenger. The package may also include: 

 • Support from the Catapult networks and the KTN 

 • Support in the development of a prototype or pilot  

 • Technical support 

 • Invitation to attend or present at KTN or Catapult events

 • A potential business collaboration 

 • Investor introductions (if investment is required) 

 • Support if any innovate or similar competitions are relevant

Functional Requirements

• A highly portable method of inspecting welds 

 • Robust 

 • For ferritic steels to begin with

 • The ability to fully inspect and then highlight defect areas

 • Create a permanent record for both regulation and analysis purposes

Technical Characteristics

• Must primarily support hand welding, may look to Robot welds if suitable  

• The ability to learn from its own data records of failure modes, meaning the quality of analysis (and thus welds) increases over time  

• Refined sentencing and autonomous learning

Operating Conditions

• Able to be operated by one person  

• Wide variety of locations, some with limited access 

• Up to 180 deg steel with an ambient of 5-40 deg 

• Initially in factory large environment but may be improved for outdoor working

Deployment Timescale

• Launch of the Competition: 2nd of September 2019 

• Deadline for applications: 18th of October 2019

• Selection and notification of finalists: 25th of October 2019 

• Solutions should be deployable ASAP

    Cost requirement and market opportunity

    • Costs will be proportional to deployability 

    • For the right product, the solution could be used across the clients portfolio and wider

    Eligibility and assessment criteria

    Entrants to this competition must be: 

    • Established businesses, startups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs 

    • UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base

    Applications will be assessed on: 

    • Relevance to the topic 

    • Innovative nature of the subject

    • Coherence of the proposed business model 

    • Feasibility/ economic viability 

    • Development potential 

    • Maturity of project/solution 

    • Ability to launch project quickly/Ease of implementation 

    • Price/quality ratio 

    • Suitability for the UK and European Market

    IP and Potential Commercial Route

    • Existing background IP associated with a potential solution will remain with Solution Provider(s). Where any new IP generation is envisaged, it will be subject to the mutual IP agreement of the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger. 

    • Any commercial deployment of transferred solution or newly developed solution, through licensing, joint venture, partnership or direct investment, will be subject to the commercial agreement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger. 

    • Where necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) may be signed to uphold confidentiality in the engagement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger. (This would be expected to be after company selection, it is suggested that details of IP be not disclosed, Focus on the outcomes of the technology proposed). 

    • Innovate UK and KTN do not take any share of IP ownership or enter into commercial venture through the iX programme.

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