Patent Document ID: 20090301202
Application ID: 12306534
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. Device forming an operating tool, for the non-destructive testing, during or at the end of production, of iron an steel products, on pipes or other elongated products, this tool being intended to extract information such as possible defects in the pipe, from feedback signals that are captured ( 73 ), following selective excitation ( 70 ) of ultrasound sensor transmitters according to a selected time rule, forming an arrangement with a selected geometry, mounted in ultrasound coupling with the pipe via the intermediary of a liquid medium, with relative rotation/translation movement between the pipe and the transducer arrangement, said operating tool being characterised in that it comprises a converter ( 891 ; 892 ), capable of selectively isolating a digital representation of possible echoes in designated time windows, as a function of the relative rotation/translation movement, and extracting from this an image ( 901 ; 902 ), of possible defects in the pipe; a filter ( 921 ; 922 ), capable of determining, in the images ( 901 ; 902 ), presumed defect zones (Zcur), as well as the properties of each presumed defect; a combiner ( 960 ), arranged to prepare digital inputs for the neural circuit, from an extract ( 951 ; 952 ) of the images corresponding to a presumed defect zone (Zcur), properties of the presumed defect in the same zone, coming from the filter ( 921 ; 922 ), and contextual data ( 740 ); at least one arrangement of the neural circuit type ( 970 ), that receives the inputs from the combiner ( 960 ); a digital decision and alarm stage ( 992 ), operating on the basis of the output from the arrangement of the neural circuit type ( 970 ), and a sorting and marking robot ( 994 ), arranged to separate and mark pipes that have been deemed not to conform by the decision and alarm digital stage ( 992 ).