Dual-robot stud welding system for membrane wall

Abstract

Purpose The membrane wall is one of the most important components in the boiler industry and numerous studs are welded on its surface. The membrane wall welding still remains a sector intensive in the manual and arduous works. This paper aims to propose a dual-robot system to automatically weld studs on the membrane wall. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors proposed a dual-robot stud welding system for membrane walls. First, the membrane wall is divided into several zones and the welding paths are planned. Then, the pose of the pipes is calculated based on the data measured by light section sensors. The planned paths are compensated by the pose. Finally, the robots weld studs based on the compensated paths. Findings The method effectively eliminates manufacturing errors and welding distortions. The system can weld straight type and L-type membrane walls with high efficiency, high quality and high accuracy. Originality/value The system can weld straight type and L-type membrane walls with high efficiency and high quality. Experiments were performed in a factory to demonstrate the practicability of the method. The dual-robot system with two welding machines has approximately twice the efficiency of the manual welder with only one welding machine. The quality and accuracy of robot welding systems are higher than that of manual welding.

Online programming system for robotic fillet welding in Industry 4.0

“…The authors in Shen et al (2020) propose a data model for automated welding, relying on CAD/computer-aided manufacturing/computer-aided process planning technology, achieving a robust system but with an excess of devices and steps in their method that could be solved by taking another approach. The authors in Chen and Hu (2021) show a specific double-arm welding robot focused on stud welding, where the system relies on a computer-aided design (CAD) model to develop the welding trajectories. On shipbuilding, the authors analyze in Zych (2021) current programming methods, where they dedicate a space to the use of vision in ship welding.…”