Dapco improves safety for railroads, pipelines and other critical infrastructure with TI’s new six-core DSP
Processing power, real-time speed of TI’s TMS320C6472 DSP allow Dapco’s non-destructive testing equipment to identify more defects inside metal and other materials
Bangalore (November 10, 2009) – Dapco Industries, Inc. is using Texas Instruments Incorporated’s (TI) new TMS320C6472 digital signal processor (DSP) to improve the ability of Dapco’s non-destructive testing (NDT) equipment to peer inside railroad rails, high-speed train wheels, high pressure gas cylinders, and other critical transportation, power generation, and infrastructure components to pinpoint internal defects before structural failures cause safety risks to life and property. Dapco will deliver the first commercial version of its C6472-based ultrasonic testing instrumentation to the Union Pacific Railroad next month. Processing power up to 4.2 GHz, faster real-time processing speeds and the industry’s lowest power consumption were critical features imperative in Dapco’s decision to deploy the six-core C6472 DSP at the heart of their test equipment.
“Our next-generation test and inspection instruments will have significantly greater precision and be capable of 3D imaging, similar to that of medical ultrasonic imaging; things that just were not possible with legacy equipment,” said Ron Keenan instrumentation development leader at Dapco. “Internal defects in the structures and components we are dealing with are simply dangerous. Because of the capabilities of the C6472, our defect detection capability will increase in speed and accuracy. Technicians in the field, inspecting rail or high-pressure gas cylinders, and in factories where pipe and other product is being manufactured, will be able to locate and classify defects that were previously considered undetectable. By accelerating the speed and accuracy of these tests, we will lower the cost of the inspection process and make it more effective.”
Dapco is implementing the C6472 in a new system architecture designed to detect the smallest defects quickly and allow technicians to examine their characteristics much more closely than they could in the past. Moreover, the system will have the intelligence to dynamically and automatically categorize defects, reducing the risk of human operator error. TI DSPs are also used by other companies for imaging and diagnostic systems as well as other high-performance imaging applications.
High-Speed Architecture
Dapco’s next-generation NDT systems have been designed for “real-time” digital processing of received acoustic signals within a 100 micro-second (µs) test cycle time. That is, every 100 µs, the C6472-based system pulses acoustic energy into the test piece, and monitors the test piece for any returned acoustic energy. The system digitizes and analyzes the received acoustic signals for rendering of detailed 3D images of any internal anomalies, or for application to real-time pattern recognition algorithms.
The high-speed peripherals included with the C6472 were also critical to Dapco’s selection of the device. In particular, Dapco is using the C6472’s Serial RapidIO (SRIO) ports to achieve transfer rates of five gigabits per second (Gbps) between the system’s pre-processor FPGAs and the C6472 DSP cores. The C6472’s high-speed Gigabit Ethernet interface as well as its Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) memory interface are also deployed in Dapco’s next-generation systems.
Low Power
The C6472’s industry-leading power consumption efficiency was another important consideration for Dapco. Future generations of Dapco’s NDT inspection and test systems will be battery-operated. As a result, deploying the lowest power components in the next generation of their systems was an important step in this direction.
“We always try to design our systems with a ‘green’ mindset,” said Keenan. “We will be designing low-power features into our next-generation systems so that partitions of the system can be powered down when they’re not in use. That will reduce overall power consumption. And, of course, the low power consumption of the C6472 was a very big plus in this regard.”
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About Dapco Industries
Dapco Industries (www.dapcondt.com) specializes in the design and manufacturing of nondestructive testing instrumentation, ultrasonic transducers and wheel probes, and customized turnkey ultrasonic inspection systems used for high throughput, real-time inspection of products for factory/mill in-line and off-line applications. Dapco is a global leader in the development and design of ultrasonic rail inspection vehicles.
Dapco Industries is part of Nordco, Inc. The Nordco family of companies offer an extensive selection of products and services that help the railroad industry keep its trains running safely, efficiently and on time. The family of companies consists of Nordco Inc.; J.E.R. Overhaul; Shuttlewagon; Dapco Industries; and Nordco Rail Service. Nordco is headquartered in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, with operations in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Arcola, Illinois; Grandview, Missouri; Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Lee’s Summit, Missouri. For more information, go to www.dapcondt.com.
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