Welding Technology

  From 2021 to 2031, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates employment of welders, cutters, solderers and braziers will grow at 2%, lagging behind the average for all occupations. A new program in Mooresville aims to close the gap by getting more people in the North Carolina community trained so they can enter the job force as skilled welders.  In January, the Universal Technical Institute expanded its Welding Technology Training program to the NASCAR Technical Institute campus.  The 36-week training program gives students a hands-on experience so they know what it’s like working an actual welding job. Instructors who are experts in their welding professions lead the classes. The curriculum consists of students training in welding booths and Lincoln Electric’s VRTEX virtual reality simulators, introducing them to tools found in their prospective careers.  Students will go through four processes to help them become welders:  Gas metal ar...

    Lasers play roles in many manufacturing processes, from welding car parts to crafting engine components with 3D printers. To control these tasks, manufacturers must ensure that their lasers fire at the correct power.   But to date, there has been no way to precisely measure laser power during the manufacturing process in real time, while lasers are cutting or melting objects, for example. Without this information, some manufacturers may have to spend more time and money assessing whether their parts meet manufacturing specifications after production. To address this need, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been developing a laser power sensor that could be built into manufacturing devices for real-time measurements. They present the results from their latest prototype in an October 2018 issue of IEEE Sensors.  The new device works in a similar way to a previous sensor made by the team, which uses ra...

    Researchers from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) carried out experimental research on resistance-laser spot welding technology for aluminum/steel dissimilar metals, and made improvement in the mechanical properties of aluminum/steel welding joints. The study was published in Materials & Design. To improve the poor performance of aluminum /steel dissimilar metal welds, the researchers used a resistance-laser spot welding technique to weld the combination. The spot welds are made by resistance spot welding connection technology, which is the mainstream technology in automobile manufacturing, and circular welds are made around the spot welds by laser flight welding technology. The researchers found that significant improvements in the mechanical properties of aluminum/steel joints were achieved by changing the joint structure and controlling the thickness of brittle intermetallic compounds. The ...

  Are there automated welding cells that can be used profitably for lot sizes as small as 1? Yes, and this is possible with the TruArc Weld 1000 from TRUMPF, which has made simplicity its guiding principle. A visit to zweifel metall ag in Amriswil, Switzerland, where this welding robot is installed in the metalworking shop. Good welders are hard to find and this problem will get worse in the future. But that's not the only reason why companies with welding departments would like to automate some of their jobs. Another reason is that when you weld for hours on end, your concentration wanes and quality can suffer considerably as a result. However, what keeps many potential buyers of welding robots and welding cells from making a purchase is the complexity of these machines. Especially for small series, the effort of programming is often not worth it. In addition, programming requires in-depth knowledge of welding technology, which in turn calls for a well-train...

  On its surface, the work is deceptively simple: Shoot a high-power laser beam onto a piece of metal for a fraction of a second and see what happens. But researchers say the physics of laser welding is surprisingly complex. A better understanding of the interaction between laser and metal could give industry more control over laser welding, a technology that is becoming increasingly popular in manufacturing. For the past three years, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been collecting data on the most fundamental aspects of laser welding . The scope of their study is narrow, but the measurements of this complicated process are more accurate and comprehensive than any data ever collected on the subject, the researchers say. Now, this information is starting to be used by computer modelers to improve simulations of laser welding processes,...