Patent Application
20130186193
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to railroad brake control valves and, more particularly, to a system and method for testing railroad brake control valves.
2. Description of Related Art
Control valves that control the operation of brakes for railroad freight cars, such as the ABDX control valve sold and manufactured by Wabtec Corporation, include an emergency portion and a service portion that are secured to a pipe bracket. The pipe bracket has an integral receiver, such as a four-port receiver, that accommodates and receives a connection to an Automatic Single Car Test Device (ASCTD). The ASCTD allows the freight car air brakes to be tested to ensure such brakes are operating properly and to diagnose any problems. An automatic brake control valve test unit is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,727, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
In one embodiment, a system for testing a railroad brake control valve includes an operating portion configured to receive operating information from a railroad brake control valve, a processing portion connected to the operating portion, an adaptor configured to engage a receiver of a pipe bracket, and an information reader configured to obtain valve identification information from an information source. The processing portion receives the operating information from the operating portion. The adapter is connected to the operating portion.
The system may further include a source of compressed air that is connected to the operating portion. The processing portion may include a microprocessor and a power supply. The processing portion may be configured to be connected to at least one of a display, a data file, a server, and a central database. The processing portion may also be connected to a remote database via an internet connection. The information reader may be integrated into the adapter. The processing portion may include a microprocessor with the information reader being connected to the microprocessor. The information reader may be at least one of a bar code reader and an RFID tag reader.
In a further embodiment, a method for testing a railroad brake control valve includes: connecting an adaptor from a test device to a receiver of a pipe bracket of a railroad brake control valve; obtaining identification information for the railroad brake control valve from an information source using an information reader; conducting a test of the railroad brake control valve using a microprocessor; and, notifying a designated person of a status of the railroad brake control valve. The status is determined by the test conducted of the railroad brake control valve.
In one embodiment, the status may be a pass/fail condition. The designated person may be notified via an electronic message. The information source may be at least one of a bar code tag and an RFID tag. The identification information may be obtained automatically upon connecting the adaptor to the receiver of the pipe bracket. The method may also further include: removing a defective portion of the railroad brake control valve based on the status of the railroad brake control valve; obtaining identification information for the defective portion of the railroad brake control valve; and, notifying the designated person that the defective portion has been identified for repair. The method may also include determining a warranty status of the defective portion using a microprocessor; notifying the designated person of the warranty status of the defective portion; and, notifying the designated person of shipping information for the defective part. Further, the method may include sending an invoice to the designated person based on the warranty status of the defective portion.
For purposes of the description hereinafter, the terms “upper”, “lower”, “right”, “left”, “vertical”, “horizontal”, “top”, “bottom”, and derivatives thereof, shall relate to the invention as it is oriented in the drawing figures. However, it is to be understood that the invention may assume various alternative variations and step sequences, except where expressly specified to the contrary. It is also to be understood that the specific devices and processes illustrated in the attached drawings, and described in the following specification, are simply exemplary embodiments of the invention. Hence, specific dimensions and other physical characteristics related to the embodiments disclosed herein are not to be considered as limiting.
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Although the information source 62 may include a variety of information as discussed above, the information source 62 may also just provide an identifier for the railroad control valve 16 and with that identifier being used to obtain or provide further information from or to a data file, server, and/or central database. The information reader 60 may automatically read the information source 62 whenever the adaptor 18 for the system 10 is connected to the control valve 16 to run a single car test and automatically enter the information into the data file for the test being run by the system 10. The system 10 may also facilitate the automated ordering of replacement components.
Moreover, the information reader 60 may also be provided separately from the adaptor 18 for the system 10. In particular, the information reader 60 may be embodied as a handheld device provided separately from the system 10. The operation of the information reader 60 may be integrated into the operation of the system 10, but may also be functional separately from the system 10. If there is no testing system 10 present, the information reader 60 may store the information from the information source 62 on the information reader 60 or wirelessly transmit or link to a database/program that receives the information from the information reader 60. Furthermore, the information source 62, such as the bar code or RFID tag, may be located at any suitable position on the control valve 16 rather than being located adjacent to the receiver 26 of the pipe bracket 24. The information source 62 may be located on a specific portion of the control valve 16, such as a service portion or emergency portion, or may be provided on other, separate brake system components, such as empty/load devices. Moreover, a plurality of information sources 62 may also be provided, such that an information source 62 is provided separately for various portions of the control valve 16 and/or other brake system components.
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The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in part or in whole through a machine that executes computer software, program codes, and/or instructions on a processor. The processor may be part of a server, client, network infrastructure, mobile computing platform, stationary computing platform, or other computing platform. A processor may be any kind of computational or processing device capable of executing program instructions, codes, binary instructions and the like. The processor may be or include a signal processor, digital processor, embedded processor, microprocessor, or any variant such as a co-processor (math co-processor, graphic co-processor, communication co-processor and the like) and the like that may directly or indirectly facilitate execution of program code or program instructions stored thereon. In addition, the processor may enable execution of multiple programs, threads, and codes. The threads may be executed simultaneously to enhance the performance of the processor and to facilitate simultaneous operations of the application. By way of implementation, methods, program codes, program instructions and the like described herein may be implemented in one or more threads. The thread may spawn other threads that may have assigned priorities associated with them; the processor may execute these threads based on priority or any other order based on instructions provided in the program code. The processor may include memory that stores methods, codes, instructions, and programs as described herein and elsewhere. The processor may access a storage medium through an interface that may store methods, codes, and instructions as described herein and elsewhere. The storage medium associated with the processor for storing methods, programs, codes, program instructions, or other type of instructions capable of being executed by the computing or processing device may include, but may not be limited to, one or more of a CD-ROM, DVD, memory, hard disk, flash drive, RAM, ROM, cache and the like.
The methods and/or processes described above, and steps thereof, may be realized in hardware, software, or any combination of hardware and software suitable for a particular application. The hardware may include a general purpose computer and/or dedicated computing device or specific computing device or particular aspect or component of a specific computing device. The processes may be realized in one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, embedded microcontrollers, programmable digital signal processors, or other programmable device, along with internal and/or external memory. The processes may also, or instead, be embodied in an application specific integrated circuit, a programmable gate array, programmable array logic, or any other device or combination of devices that may be configured to process electronic signals. It will further be appreciated that one or more of the processes may be realized as a computer executable code capable of being executed on a machine readable medium.
The computer executable code may be created using a structured programming language such as C, an object oriented programming language such as C++, or any other high-level or low-level programming language (including assembly languages, hardware description languages, and database programming languages and technologies) that may be stored, compiled or interpreted to run on one of the above devices, as well as heterogeneous combinations of processors, processor architectures, or combinations of different hardware and software, or any other machine capable of executing program instructions.
Thus, in one aspect, each method described above and combinations thereof may be embodied in computer executable code that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps thereof. In another aspect, the methods may be embodied in systems that perform the steps thereof, and may be distributed across devices in a number of ways, or all of the functionality may be integrated into a dedicated, standalone device or other hardware. In another aspect, the means for performing the steps associated with the processes described above may include any of the hardware and/or software described above. All such permutations and combinations are intended to fall within the scope of the present disclosure.
Although the invention has been described in detail for the purpose of illustration based on what is currently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that such detail is solely for that purpose and that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments but, on the contrary, is intended to cover modifications and equivalent arrangements that are within the spirit and scope of the description. For example, it is to be understood that the present invention contemplates that, to the extent possible, one or more features of any embodiment can be combined with one or more features of any other embodiment.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/590,529, filed Jan. 25, 2012, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61590529 | Jan 2012 | US |
