IIW History 1990-2015

Increased use of robotic welding in the automotive industry

keeping IIW interest high in this expanding area, two stalwarts of IIW, Granjon and Boyd, wrote a distinguished book, Automation and Robotisation in Welding and Allied Processes , published by IIW through Pergamon Press in 1985. By 2005 around 120 000 robots were being used in the USA with approximately half of them being used for welding. 22 The previously mentioned process of friction stir welding also found increasing application in robotic welding in both the automotive and aviation industries as an innovative technology for the welding of aluminium and its alloys. 23 As well as more exotic techniques, such as laser and electron beam welding, the number of arc welding automatic robot stations increased significantly as the new century dawned, with gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) (also known as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding) and gas metal arc welding (GMAW) (sometimes referred to as metal inert gas (MIG) welding or metal active gas (MAG) welding) being well suited to robot systems and their ability to produce high quality welds. All of this has led to a change of emphasis for many involved in the ways of using modern technology in the design of welding equipment and the adaption of these new techniques in industry. Today, the computer has become a tool used for achieving these purposes and therefore has given rise to a new generation of scientists involved in what is now recognised as a multi-disciplinary approach for the development of new welding processes. This development heralded a new century of information technology, which required special emphasis on how best to utilise the intrinsic properties of mechanical and electronic components in combination with computer control. 24 In his Houdremont Lecture,

RESEARCH & INNOVATION