Application of automatic welding trolley in the shipbuilding industry

I. Overview

As a special operation method, welding has a poor working environment and high skill requirements, which has led to a shortage of its employees. High-skilled operators are even more difficult to find. In recent years, due to the development of the industry and the large environmental impact of domestic labor shortage, the employment gap has been further aggravated, so the automation of welding operations is imperative.

As a professional automatic welding equipment manufacturer, we believe that welding automation is a systematic technical service project based on the particularity of welding operations. On the basis of the modularization of equipment functions, the “private customization” service of functional module combination and redesign according to the actual needs of users is the only way to develop in the future.

This article briefly introduces the company's automation supporting services with a typical application case of our company in the shipbuilding industry.

Second, the typical application case

1. Customer requirements

According to its actual station requirements, a shipyard has made the following requirements for our automatic welding equipment:

(1) In addition to being used for flat, vertical and horizontal welds, it is also necessary to meet the welding of straight, curved weld bead workpieces.

(2) Convenience equipment reduces wiring and is easy to carry and carry.

(3) Simple operation The common parameters are easy to operate and have remote control function, which is convenient for remote control.

(4) Efficiency quality The automatic welding phase is three times more efficient than the manual welding, reducing the cost of the weld grinding process, and the welding forming rate is significantly improved.

(5) Weakening welder skill operators only need simple operation training and equipment training, and need not be limited by the professional qualification requirements of Class I and Class II welders.

(6) The service life of the whole machine is up to 4000h per year (except for vulnerable spare parts).

(7) Economical machine price control is within its acceptable range.

2. Customer requirements analysis and implementation According to customer requirements and our on-site inspection of the shipyard site, the following improvements have been made:

(1) Multi-purpose use of one machine To achieve the multi-purpose requirements of the customer, it is necessary to design and improve the self-weight, adsorption force and profiling ability of the equipment.

First, the equipment walking module was redesigned to reduce its own weight. 1 The body material is die-casting aluminum alloy, and the structure is made of thin-walled ribs. The mold is produced, light and durable. 2 car weights have been re-optimized layout to reduce external torque.

Second, the adsorption device uses a permanent magnet adsorption method. 1 select high performance permanent magnet material. 2 The soft magnetic yoke is used to make the high-performance magnet work at the maximum magnetic energy product working point, which reduces the self-weight of the adsorption device and greatly enhances the adsorption force of the device.

Third, the use of a guide wheel combined with a soft and hard track comprehensive profiling. The equipment is well adapted to the welding of straight and curved bead welds. The specific welding implementation is shown in Figures 1 to 3.

(2) The service life of the whole machine 4000h The biggest impact on the life of each module in the equipment is the welding oscillator. The conventional swing function modules of our company mainly include: 1 Welding oscillator based on brushed motor. Its characteristic is that the control circuit is simple and the price is cheap, but its control precision is low and the service life is short. The rated service life is only 2000h, and the swing motor needs to be replaced during the period to prolong the service life. 2 Welding oscillator based on BLDC motor. Its characteristics are that the control circuit is more complicated, the control precision is higher, and the service life is longer (the theoretical life can reach more than 10000h), but its existence cannot achieve the absolute coordinate control of motion. 3 Welding oscillator based on servo motor. It is characterized by long service life, high control precision and absolute coordinate control of motion, but it has the disadvantages of high price and complicated control circuit.

Considering the requirements of efficiency quality and weakening welder skill, and in this case, the absolute coordinate control of motion is not required, and the pendulum welding oscillator module based on BLDC motor is selected.

(3) Convenience In response to the equipment requirements of the equipment proposed by the customer, we have mainly adopted the following two aspects of design improvement:

First, the power supply design was changed. The tool battery is selected as the power supply, and the power circuit adopts the off-line converter for constant voltage compensation, realizing the practical use effect of the single battery for one day, greatly simplifying the dependence of the device wiring and the external power supply of the device.

Second, the use of a separate wire-controlled port welding torch. The torch wire control port is directly connected to the control, simplifying the wiring of the welding control circuit.

The adoption of the above measures enables the joint operation of the equipment with the welding equipment without any additional wiring.

(4) Simple operation Because the swing stay time, arcing time, swing speed, swing angle, walking speed and swing center need to be adjusted separately during the welding operation of the customer, it is re-established on the hardware of our five-parameter control box module. Software development is carried out to achieve separation of the adjustment functions of the above parameters.

Through the above measures, the equipment suitable for the site of the shipyard is integrated and designed. After the design of the project was completed, we worked with the shipyard to carry out equipment commissioning and necessary secondary optimization and achieved good practical use, which was affirmed by the customers.

Considering the industry versatility of the device, we have finalized the device as HCD500-6 with the consent of the customer (see Figure 4). At the 19th Beijing Essen Welding and Cutting Exhibition, the equipment attracted many audiences to discuss with our technical staff.

Third, the conclusion

As a professional automatic welding equipment service provider, we believe that the industrialized welding function module manufacturing combined with the professional integration design of “fit for the parts” can better serve customers. In order to better serve the welding market, we will regularly display the company's latest research and development results, hoping to make a contribution to the development of China's welding automation, so as to share!