new ON-line method for quality assurance of WELDed structures (ONWELD)
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Swerea KIMAB AB |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 3 300 000 |
| Project duration | December 2013 - December 2016 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | FFI - Sustainable Production |
| End-of-project report | 2013-04696sv.pdf(pdf, 1789 kB) (In Swedish) |
Important results from the project
The main goal for the project was to enable non-biased on-line QA-evaluation of continuous weldments, in an accurate and repeatable way, and by that enable more optimised and lighter designs. It has also been a goal to evaluate how this new technology could be implemented in control systems in welding machines and robot control systems. The project has developed an interesting prototype, shown as a demonstrator. It is off-line (after welding) so far. The technology works well but need a final industrialisation effort this will be done in a separate Vinn-Verifiera project starting now.
Expected long term effects
Prototyp for on-line QA-concept. YES. Prototype used as demonstrator in lab- and manufacturing environment. with arc off - YES. Improved QA and reduced weight in Industry. NOT YET. Improved knowledge on process variation - new QA guidelines. - NOT YET, tool is here but more studies required. Proposal for advanced process control in welding machines and robot systems. YES. Project reinforces R & D in companies, institute and university. One PhD student and one Diploma work. YES. SWC in lead of dissemination. YES. Results to Master- & IWE education at KTH. YES.
Approach and implementation
The project was performed in close cooperation between academy and companies in 7 work packages, with initial tasks to define demands and identify possible solutions for hard- and software. Then, algorithms were developed and built into a prototype system that through step-wise testing was further improved. By taking the prototype to participating companies as a demonstrator, the acceptance for such a QA system was evaluated. It gave interesting discussions and ideas. In all, the basic technology development has taken more time and resources that anticipated.