Advanced Welding Solutions webinar by KUKA Nordic

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Today's topic is KUKA advanced welding solution  and with that we actually are talking about mainly two types of solid state  welding but of course most of you relate to KUKA as a robot supplier and we have  been starting to use a slogan if you like which we call more than robots and with that we mean that  of course we have probably the market's widest range of robot types but our robot program is so  much more than just robots it's all the softwares and the functionalities around them but less known  is that KUKA is also a world leading supplier and has been this for decades of solid state welding  solution and two of the main types of solid-state welding we supply is for the first it's friction  stir welding where we can supply standard cells or complete turnkey projects for friction stir  welding and the other main type we supply is actually rotary friction welding machines  complete machines so here KUKA is actually a machine builder and not a robot supplier in  this aspect. A and some of you may know the brand KUKA for rotary friction welding machines but  also Thompson which is a part of KUKA as well Because we already today have a large installed  base worldwide of these types of machines So what are these technologies well  Let's dive into them a little bit deeper there are some common factors between the  both these two types of friction stir welding and rotary friction welding machines  Why do we use friction welding at all? One very large and important part is that  with friction wells there are no consumables required we are only joining two materials  without adding any exterior material any way No filler no inert gas nothing we're  just using the materials we want to bond Speaking of bonds with friction welding we get a complete homogeneous bond across the entire joint surface  Not only where we normally otherwise would have added a filler, we get  a complete and homogeneous bond And friction welding has another nice effect  and that is that it allows us to join dissimilar metals I've written, but different metals of different types can be bonded together There is one other very important aspect of  this is that actually when we do friction welding we are not melting the materials, we are  welding together we are of course heating them But we are not melting them and that means that  we don't really get the same type of problems you can get with warmer welding processes  such as cracks and pores and other problems And as I already mentioned the process itself  requires no filler material no flexing no shielding gases. So it's very  effective and no as I already mentioned again no pores no cracks. The technology itself is  very controllable inline controllable it's 100 procent repeatable we can ensure that each welding is  done in the exact same way. We can have an online inline quality control as the weld happens and  that gives us also a full traceability down to single part traceability in terms of quality  control of the weldings that are done And of course, friction welding  is actually defined as a sustainable technology as it requires no consumables as I mentioned. And less  energy than other welding technologies so because of it as it has been defined as a sustainable  technology. Which is of course important to us all

Where is typically friction stir welding  used if we start off with friction stir welding And when we at KUKA talk about friction  stir welding we do it with a robotic arm We will get back to that later  but we do it with a robotic arm, to get the advantages you get when you use  a robot at all in any other process But friction stir welding is mostly about joining  metal sheets together and in our case it's mainly aluminium and non-ferocious metals  that we join together. So the typical area of use is very much into the electric vehicle  application fields. The e-mobility areas. So housing of battery packs or vehicles of any kind is a  very large part of the area of application. It can also be in body shops for example we're joining  metal sheets to the frame typically aluminium to steel ages and so on because again, we have the  possibility to join different types of materials Heat exchanger or fuel cells are another area of  application where we need very precise very thin canals between two sheets of metal  And of course again the e-mobility field which requires a lot of enclosures for  the various electronic parts needed in our hybrid or electrical cars. Not  only the battery needs to be capsuled.

But also other electric components like  the drives units the electronic boxes. And to the right you see how simple a friction  stir welding cell actually could look If you look a little bit at the principle of  friction stir welding, Well basically we are plunging what we call a probe down into  the material the probe that is rotating That means that once we plunge  the probe down into the material And the probe itself is defined of two parts  basically a shoulder which is what we see and what is smaller and the part which sticks  out you can see it here it's called the pin And there are two different techniques here either  the complete shoulder and the pin can rotate Or just the pin, which gives us a  little bit different quality aspects But basically we start plunging the pin into the material We start rotating the pin to build up the frictional  heat required, so we stand still until that heat is the required temperature is reached  And once that is done we start moving our our probe in the required  pattern we need to do the weld Once that is done of course we then retract at  the end of our welding we retract our probe And typically a world will look  something like this in the material And of course there is a number of process  parameters and settings such as axel force, tilt angle of the probe, traveling speed, offset depth  of the probe, side tilting and so on. And KUKA cann not only supply the equipment for this, but we also  can supply the know-how the expertise needed here Likewise it's important when we friction weld  that the material is clapped together that we have a fixturing that is really good to the materials  This is where our expertise comes into play And we do have extensive experience  in friction stir welding with either as I mentioned before classic tooling with both  a rotating shoulder or just a rotating pin. And we

have welded all types of aluminium in alloys in different types of seams. As you see in  the bottom picture here. So it could be but switch where the we were placing two edges towards  one another an overlapping weld which is in the middle picture here to weld two materials together  Or a combination of the two as we see here But an overlap joints all these  types of joints are possible to address with friction stir welding Let me just show you a video of this  which describes it actually and this is an example of a battery housing clamped and  friction stir welded. I'll start the video I hope you saw the video For the observant viewer you could see a few  things there, we're not just welding together two metal sheets. The application in this case was actually sealing and creating cooling channels  in the battery housing in this case Thanks to our knowledge in friction stir welding  this has made us a really experienced supplier in the electric mobility area for assembly and  manufacturing of battery packs for automotive Because it's not just a question of  putting batteries together in the box, but to make sure that the lifespan of  these battery packs are as much long as possible that means that they need to be  cooled or heated depending on outside temperatures And this is done through the  housing and to a large extent but I mentioned earlier that when it  comes to friction stir welding we use a six arm robots which makes us pretty unique  in the market if doing friction stir willing in this way. The question is of course why do we  use that and not a portal robot or a CNC machine

Well the answer is quite simple we do it  for the same reason why we use robots in any other type of production. Robot always  gives us a very high degree of flexibility and the ability to have short production  cycle with a high volume of differentiated products. Of course it also gives us the  possibility to do a two two-dimensional friction weld which we saw in the video  earlier, but of course since it's a six axis robot we can do it in a 3D environment  as well we are not restricted to the 2D plane And of course it's a relatively simple solution  which makes it flexible and scalable it's easy to scale up, and of course a robot is comparative to  a CNC RIG or a portal robot a relatively low cost investments. And obviously we  are a robot suppliers again Where we have a large installed base we  have a global service team of this access So what can we supply then? Well we have  standardized cells for friction stir weldings which we call cell for friction stir  welding FSW in different sizes they are modular We can also sell friction stir welding as  an application module which is basically a robot with its control cabinet a friction stir welding  spindle and then we would also supply expertise and know-how into the process. So we can do it  as standard cells we can supply the components or, if you like we can also supply them as  turnkey projects and here are two interesting applications which has been done by KUKA In one case with KUKA on its own and other cases  together with our partners in the market. Our system partners. So you see we can supply a wide  range of applications not only a standard cell

And most importantly we will supply the knowledge  required to ensure the quality of the process If we now leave the topic of friction stir  welding and look to the rotary friction welding Which is based on the same principle  but the application fields are a little bit different. In friction welding there are  typically two parts that are moved towards one another under pressure and then rotated  so we get the friction and build up the heat This is easiest described again with the  video so I'll start a new video for you This video pretty much describes  how the process looks like In the GoTo webinar panel there is a  field called handouts if you have a look and under this I've uploaded a couple  of pdfs which describes these two processes And our standard friction welding machines so if  you're interested please you can download them from there or you will of course  find them on our web page as well But friction welding rotor which you saw  here has is actually not a really new technology has been around for 50 years plus And we have more than 1500  installations of these machines worldwide Again the interesting part here  well one of the interesting parts is that different types of material can actually  be welded together. In this example you see here it's everything from stainless steel to  aluminium to copper and even titanium at the end. So that here we have  the possibility to join completely different materials which could be important  from a cost saving perspective for example Little bit extra knowledge it's even possible  actually to friction weld wood together of course not to steel but different types of  wood can actually be friction welded together Here is an example and a few examples  of application fields where different types of materials have been welded together so in this case you see a connection plate a cable lug. Where you have a  copper and aluminum combination it's a aluminium cable or leader with a connective plate in  copper. This is the turbo rotor shaft where inconel and steel has been bonded together  to make the complete shaft and fans in inconel had been extremely more expensive  than doing these combination of materials Drive soft shafts with a combination of  aluminium and steel, and as you know this is also important parts in the e-mobility to  make lightweight and flexible drive units And actually as I mentioned before in this  field KUKA acts as a machine builder we have a wide program of friction welding machines  and they are sold under our own KUKA brand and also under the brand Thompson  which is a part of KUKA And we have them and for obviously different  welding diameters which also not only increases the size of the machine but it increases the  cross-section and the pressure that's needed during the welding process. And  we have also a complete new generation of

these machines from the smaller ones to the larger  ones and both in horizontal orientation and in the vertical area orientation. And these machines  are not sold only as machines if you like it's quite possible that you need an  automated material handling around the machine Which could be either supplied by us  or one of our local system partners This is a close-up of one of  the KUKA rotary welding machines Which is really ergonomic ease of  use machine if you have a process surveillance, a graphical process monitoring that  means that the quality of the weld is actually monitored in real time. And you can ensure  that each piece is welded correctly It is prepared to exist in an Industry 4.0  environment. What that means is anyone's guess or anyone's interpretation. But what it  actually means is that it is connectable we can supply and receive information  from other machines higher level machines put out production statistics and  so on directly from the machine And of course as I mentioned in the  beginning we are the world leader in these welding technologies and these are  the common states, but we do not only supply the components and the parts. We supply the  systems which ensure that these welds whether it's friction weld or friction stir weld that  each single weld is up to the quality spec We do that in real time and inline so if there is a  problem we can immediately discard that units And of course during today's webinar I've mainly  talked about the machines and the solutions But of course we are there to assist you and you will  not just run away to buy a machine immediately In each case we are there for the process  consulting to make a proof of concept To recommend what type of technology  we should use for you.

We can do test runs in our own facilities before  we you start your productions, we supply the machine we can supply the automation around  either directly from us or through our partners And afterwards we have a worldwide service  organization taking care of you as our customers And with that we have basically come  to the end of today's webinars on the topic of friction stir welding and rotary  friction welding we actually have some, a few more technologies for these solid state welding  solutions but I will leave that to another webinar opportunity. That means that we are more or  less to an end of today's webinar which was meant to increase the awareness and hopefully  wake some interest in our solutions with you

2022-02-07

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