Patent ID: 8166821

Claim:
A method of maintaining a rod of a hydraulic cylinder with an inspection crawler including a visual inspection device, an eddy current inspection device and an ultrasonic inspection device, wherein the rod includes a metallic cladding welded thereto, the method comprising: mounting the inspection crawler to the rod; positioning the inspection crawler at a start location; activating the visual inspection device, the eddy current inspection device and the ultrasonic inspection device to collect data related to the metallic cladding; moving the inspection crawler linearly along a longitudinal axis of the rod from the start location to an end location while rotating the visual inspection device, the eddy current inspection device and the ultrasonic inspection device around a circumference of the rod to simultaneously collect data related to the metallic cladding from the visual inspection device, the eddy current inspection device and the ultrasonic inspection device along the entire length and circumference of the rod between the start location and the end location; and analyzing the data collected from the visual inspection device, the eddy current inspection device and the ultrasonic inspection device to identify a discontinuity in the metallic cladding.