IIW White Paper

5.7 Strategies to face technological challenges in welding and joining technologies

There are numerous IT programmes that have been developed and used for design, simulations and off-line programming and expert systems. These can drastically reduce the testing costs and time in the development of new products and check different design alternatives. There are several numerical programmes in the market for such calculations. With the Schaeffler /Delong programme for the calculation of an appropriate weld metal, it can save a lot of work effort compared to manual calculation. The required Heat Treatment of a welded product can easily be calculated with a computer programme. Welding cost calculation is another application suitable for computer calculation. Major cost savings can be realised e.g. by using the ABB software programmes. RobotStudio for simulation and optimising of the movement of the robot arm/wrist for off-line programming and as well welding cycle times. VirtualArc® for optimising of the welding parameters for optimising of welding parameters ( Figure 5.15 ). These programmes are powerful tools to calculate the economical feasibility of planned investments. Other examples include:

Figure 5.15 Comparison between calculated penetration with VirtualArc® and real penetration ( Reproduced courtesy: ABB Robotics)

a) Calculated penetration b) Real penetration

SMEs have a huge challenge to introduce such IT-means. Many of the technicians in SMEs must be better educated and the programmes easier to use, which a survey in Sweden has shown. Welding companies can only be competitive by having the personnels with the right education and experience. IIW offers training courses and qualification through its members such as:

IIW IWE – International Welding Engineer IIW IWT – International Welding Technologist IIW IWS – International Welding Specialist IIW IWP – International Welding Practitioner

IIW IWSD – International Welded Structures Designer IIW IWI P – International Welding Inspection Personnel IIW IW – International Welder

Competitive companies are likely to need to have certified welding personnel, with which IIW can assist.

Certification of a company’s quality system is another way of getting appropriate procedures applied in order to get the right output quality in products, systems and services the company is delivering. Even in this case

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Through Optimum Use and Innovation of Welding and Joining Technologies

Improving Global Quality of Life