Patent ID: 8803024

Claim:
A method to diagnose weld integrity in a welding process to create a weld upon a plurality of work pieces, comprising: using a weld work station computer to: monitor a weld indentation characteristic comprising monitoring real-time data describing movement of weld work station weld electrodes, wherein the real-time data is generated by monitoring movement of deployment machinery for the electrodes using a sensor; obtain, from test data of welds upon test work pieces, a threshold weld indentation characteristic based upon a relationship whereat indentation values sharply exceeding the threshold weld indentation characteristic correspond to distances from a center of the weld electrode to an edge of overlap of the test work pieces to be less than a minimum threshold distance resulting in a low quality weld strength, wherein the low quality weld strength is indicative of instability in the weld upon the test work pieces whereat molten weld material moves outward past the edge of overlap of the test work pieces; compare the monitored weld indentation characteristic to the threshold weld indentation characteristic; identify a weld having low quality weld strength when the monitored weld indentation characteristic exceeds the threshold weld indentation characteristic; generate a warning based on the identified weld having low quality weld strength.