Patents by Inventor Colin Bird
Colin Bird has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 9645038Abstract: A method of measuring a flow rate of a first fluid through a rotary seal of a gas turbine engine comprising controlling a probe flow of a second fluid at an intra-seal cavity and measuring a pressure change in the first fluid caused by the probe flow.Type: GrantFiled: November 5, 2013Date of Patent: May 9, 2017Assignee: ROLLS-ROYCE plcInventor: Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20140133963Abstract: A method of measuring a flow rate of a first fluid through a rotary seal of a gas turbine engine comprising controlling a probe flow of a second fluid at an intra-seal cavity and measuring a pressure change in the first fluid caused by the probe flow.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 5, 2013Publication date: May 15, 2014Applicant: ROLLS-ROYCE PLCInventor: Colin BIRD
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Patent number: 8709592Abstract: A retro-reflective sensor coating arrangement comprises a base layer of luminescent sensor material and an outer layer of optical bodies, such a spheres.Type: GrantFiled: April 11, 2008Date of Patent: April 29, 2014Assignee: Rolls-Royce PLCInventor: Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20140098836Abstract: A temperature indicating paint is provided. The paint is spreadable onto a surface of an article. The paint includes particles of an alloy of two or more metals. The particles vary in relative composition of the metals such that particles having different compositions have different solidus and liquidus melting temperatures.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 30, 2012Publication date: April 10, 2014Applicant: ROLLS-ROYCE PLCInventor: Colin Bird
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Patent number: 7803022Abstract: A thermocouple connector has a first member and a second member which couples to the first member. The first member carries two first terminals for electrically joining to the respective ends of a pair of thermocouple wires. The second member carries two corresponding second terminals for electrically joining to the respective ends of a pair of thermocouple extension wires. Each first terminal contacts a respective second terminal when the first and second members are coupled.Type: GrantFiled: August 19, 2009Date of Patent: September 28, 2010Assignee: Rolls-Royce PLCInventors: Andrew J. MacKinnon, Paul A. Carney, Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20100048065Abstract: A thermocouple connector has a first member and a second member which couples to the first member. The first member carries two first terminals for electrically joining to the respective ends of a pair of thermocouple wires. The second member carries two corresponding second terminals for electrically joining to the respective ends of a pair of thermocouple extension wires. Each first terminal contacts a respective second terminal when the first and second members are coupled.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 19, 2009Publication date: February 25, 2010Applicant: ROLLS-ROYCE PLCInventors: Andrew J. MacKinnon, Paul A. Carney, Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20100035043Abstract: A retro-reflective sensor coating arrangement comprises a base layer of luminescent sensor material and an outer layer of optical bodies, such a spheres.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 11, 2008Publication date: February 11, 2010Applicant: Rolls-Royce PLCInventor: Colin Bird
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Patent number: 7507022Abstract: An apparatus (10) for measuring temperature using luminescence thermometry, comprising: a photon emitter (42) for providing photons (3) of at least a first frequency; photoluminescent material (30) that produces photons (5) of at least a second frequency in response to the incidence of photons (3) of the first frequency; one or more photon receivers (44); and an optically dispersive element (50) for directing photons (5) of at least a second frequency produced by the photoluminescent material (30) into the photon receiver(s).Type: GrantFiled: March 22, 2006Date of Patent: March 24, 2009Assignee: Rolls-Royce plcInventor: Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20060224596Abstract: A system (100) and method (200) for general notification of newly-acquired information by: subscribing (230) an indexing service (124; 128) to a broker (140) for a predetermined selection of information stored on an object server (110); and producing related information associated with the information stored on the object server, and publishing (220) the related information to the broker (140) for use in retrieval of the stored information from the object server. The related information preferably comprises metadata and tokens, and the indexing service the metadata for indexing and if the metadata is not relevant to its level of indexing uses the tokens to retrieve a copy of the related information for further analysis. This provides a combination of anonymous publish/subscribe technology to integrate otherwise centralised indexing and object storage, allowing content to be “pushed” to end user clients (130).Type: ApplicationFiled: March 9, 2006Publication date: October 5, 2006Inventors: Colin Bird, John Ibbotson, Ian Shore
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Publication number: 20060188000Abstract: An apparatus (10) for measuring temperature using luminescence thermometry, comprising: a photon emitter (42) for providing photons (3) of at least a first frequency; photoluminescent material (30) that produces photons (5) of at least a second frequency in response to the incidence of photons (3) of the first frequency; one or more photon receivers (44); and an optically dispersive element (50) for directing photons (5) of at least a second frequency produced by the photoluminescent material (30) into the photon receiver(s).Type: ApplicationFiled: March 22, 2006Publication date: August 24, 2006Inventor: Colin Bird
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Publication number: 20060149759Abstract: A system, method and computer program for managing resources within an integrated development environment for multiple users. The resources include both content resources and people resources. The method comprises: managing a plurality of nodes representing resources, said nodes including content nodes and person nodes, wherein the node contains a resource reference for referencing the resource; managing one or more links representing one or more relationships between the resources, said links including links between content nodes, between person nodes and between content and person nodes, each link comprising node references to identify the nodes in the relationships and an importance value to identify the importance of the relationship; providing an interface for selecting one of the plurality of content nodes or person nodes; adapting, in response to the user selected node, one or more importance values of certain links.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 29, 2005Publication date: July 6, 2006Inventors: Colin Bird, Andrew Connick, Nicholas Hill, Mark Hiscock, Sebastian Stein, Stephen Woolley
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Publication number: 20060149757Abstract: A system, method and computer program for managing resources within an integrated development environment for multiple users. The resources include both content resources and people resources.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 10, 2005Publication date: July 6, 2006Inventors: Colin Bird, Andrew Connick, Nicholas Hill, Mark Hiscock, Sebastian Stein, Stephen Woolley
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Publication number: 20060149717Abstract: A system, method and computer program for managing resources within an integrated development environment for multiple users. The resources include both content resources and people resources.Type: ApplicationFiled: November 10, 2005Publication date: July 6, 2006Inventors: Colin Bird, Andrew Connick, Nicholas Hill, Mark Hiscock, Sebastian Stein, Stephen Woolley
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Patent number: 7003425Abstract: A method of measuring temperature of a component capable of emitting thermal radiation and reflecting background radiation having the steps of: providing a pyrometer for measuring the radiation from the component, characterised by coating a part of the component with a first emissivity coating and a part of the component with a different and second emissivity coating, each with known emissivities EH and EL respectively, recording a first radiation measurement from the first emissivity coating RH and a second radiation measurement from the second emissivity coating RL, then calculating the true radiation RBlade from the component from the equation R Blade = ( R H E H - R L E H ? ( 1 - E H 1 - E L ) ) ( 1 - E L E H ? ( 1 - E H 1 - E L ) ) and relate the RBlade value to the true component temperature by calibration of the pyrometer.Type: GrantFiled: June 1, 2004Date of Patent: February 21, 2006Assignee: Rolls-Royce plcInventors: Colin Bird, Colin J Parrish
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Publication number: 20040267850Abstract: A method of measuring temperature of a component capable of emitting thermal radiation and reflecting background radiation comprising the steps of: providing a pyrometer for measuring the radiation from the component, characterised by coating a part of the component with a first emissivity coating and a part of the component with a different and second emissivity coating, each with known emissivities EH and EL respectively, recording a first radiation measurement from the first emissivity coating RH and a second radiation measurement from the second emissivity coating RL, then calculating the true radiation RBlade from the component from the equation 1 R Blade = ( R H E H - R L E H ⁢ ( 1 - E H 1 - E L ) ) ( 1 - E L E H ⁢ ( 1 - E H 1 - E L ) )Type: ApplicationFiled: June 1, 2004Publication date: December 30, 2004Inventors: Colin Bird, Colin J. Parrish
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Publication number: 20030004942Abstract: A method of generating metadata is provided including providing (401) a plurality of source texts (100), processing the plurality of source texts (100) to extract primary metadata in the form of a plurality of sets of words (104, 106), and comparing (407) each of the source texts (100) with each of the sets of words (104, 106). The method includes using a clustering program to extract the sets of words (104, 106) from the source texts (100). The step of comparing is carried out by Latent Semantic Analysis to compare the similarity of meaning of each source text (100) with each set of words (104, 106) obtained by the clustering program. The comparison obtains a measure of the extent to which each source text (100) is representative of a set of words (104, 106).Type: ApplicationFiled: June 21, 2002Publication date: January 2, 2003Applicant: International Business Machines CorporationInventor: Colin Bird
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Patent number: 5473747Abstract: An interactive data interpretation tool is disclosed for enabling the identification of the position of features in a multidimensional data set, the tool comprising means for displaying an image representing a 2-D slice of the data set; and user input means for causing the storage of the position of a feature in the displayed image, characterized in that the 2-D slice can be displayed as part of a projection of a 3-D image, the third dimension of which corresponds to one of the other dimensions of the data set, the tool comprising means operable in response to a predetermined user input operation to cause the co-ordinate of the currently displayed 2-D slice in the third dimension of the 3-D image to be incremented, and the positions in the 3-D image of any features identified in the previously displayed slice to be indicated. The invention finds particular application to the interpretation of seismological data sets. Other applications include oceanographic and medical imaging data sets.Type: GrantFiled: June 5, 1995Date of Patent: December 5, 1995Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: Colin Bird, Syd Chapman
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Patent number: 5230659Abstract: A constant velocity ratio universal joint, suitable for high speed low angle use, comprises outer and inner joint members (10,11) with engaging part-spherical surfaces (12,13) and arcuate ball-receiving grooves (14,15) diverging towards an end of the outer joint member closed by a closure member (17) with balls (16) held in the grooves by an element (31) and support member (32) which is pivoted on the closure member, and a spring (36) acting between the element (31) and support member (32) so that the balls are urged as far as possible into the grooves to take up clearances and maintain stability of the joint, particularly under no-torque conditions.Type: GrantFiled: April 8, 1992Date of Patent: July 27, 1993Assignee: Hardy Spicer LimitedInventors: Colin A. Bird, Keith J. Pugh
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Patent number: 5224899Abstract: A constant velocity ratio universal joint of the tripod type comprising a hollow outer joint member having a rotational axis and three interior guide grooves parallel to its rotational axis and equally circumferentially spaced thereabout, each guide groove having a base portion and opposed side portions; an inner joint member, inside the outer joint member, having a rotational axis and three arms equally spaced about this rotational axis and extending radially into the outer member guide grooves; each arm carrying a roller assembly with an outer roller element having an external surface engaging opposed side portions of a guide groove; an inner roller element mounted on the arm and supporting the outer roller element so that the outer roller element can rotate about, move lengthwise of, and tilt relative to the arm; and a guide element engaging the base portion of the guide groove for sliding movement therealong and also engaging the outer roller element to constrain the outer roller element against tilting rType: GrantFiled: May 15, 1991Date of Patent: July 6, 1993Assignee: Hardy Spicer LimitedInventors: Colin F. S. Turner, Colin A. Bird
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Patent number: 5203741Abstract: A constant velocity ratio universal joint of the tripod type, comprising an outer joint member (10) with three guide grooves (20), and an inner joint member with arms (13) each carrying a roller (21) which is able to rotate about, move lengthwise of, and tilt relative to the arm, wherein both the external surface (22) of the roller and each side portion of a guide groove (20) engaged thereby is of a gothic arch cross sectional shape to provide for angular contact between roller and guide groove and improve the guidance of the roller so that it remains aligned in the groove for rolling therealong and with the gothic arch section of the roller and/or guide groove side comprising arcuate portions with different centers of curvature, or having part-elliptical or part-involute portions.Type: GrantFiled: May 15, 1991Date of Patent: April 20, 1993Assignee: Hardy Spicer LimitedInventors: Turner, Colin F. S., Colin A. Bird