NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL FLUID FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER IN TIG WELD POOL WITH FULL PENETRATION

A model is established to analyze three-dimensional fluid flow and heat transfer in TICweld pools with full penetration.It considers the deformation of the molten pool surfaceat the condition of full penetrated workpieees,takes the are pressure as the drivingforce of the pool surface deformation,and determines the surface configuration of weldpool based on the dynamic balance of arc pressure,pool gravity and surface tension atdeformed weld pool surface. The SIMPLER algorithm is used to calculate the fluid flowfield and temperature distribution in TIG weld pools of stainless steel workpieces.TIGwelding experiments are made to verify the validity of the model.It shows the calculatedresults by the model are in good agreement with experimental measurements. professor,Dept of Welding Engineering,Harbin Institute of Technology,Harbin 150006,China

Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Welding Pool Surface by Binocular Vision

Current research of binocular vision systems mainly need to resolve the camera’s intrinsic parameters before the reconstruction of three-dimensional(3D)objects.The classical Zhang’calibration is hardly to calculate all errors caused by perspective distortion and lens distortion.Also,the image-matching algorithm of the binocular vision system still needs to be improved to accelerate the reconstruction speed of welding pool surfaces.In this paper,a preset coordinate system was utilized for camera calibration instead of Zhang’calibration.The binocular vision system was modified to capture images of welding pool surfaces by suppressing the strong arc interference during gas metal arc welding.Combining and improving the algorithms of speeded up robust features,binary robust invariant scalable keypoints,and KAZE,the feature information of points(i.e.,RGB values,pixel coordinates)was extracted as the feature vector of the welding pool surface.Based on the characteristics of the welding images,a mismatch-elimination algorithm was developed to increase the accuracy of image-matching algorithms.The world coordinates of matching feature points were calculated to reconstruct the 3D shape of the welding pool surface.The effectiveness and accuracy of the reconstruction of welding pool surfaces were verified by experimental results.This research proposes the development of binocular vision algorithms that can reconstruct the surface of welding pools accurately to realize intelligent welding control systems in the future.

An Improved Three-Dimensional Non-Equilibrium Mixing Pool Model

This paper presents an improved three-dimensional non-equilibrium mixing pool model.It is a simplified form of the original model and is more practical for applications.The simulation re-sults show that the industrial scale distillation tray columns can be described closely by the improvedmodel.The effects of model parameters,such as the number of mixing pools,the point efficiencyand flow pattern,on separation are analyzed quantitatively.

Image processing of weld pool and keyhole in Nd:YAG laser welding of stainless steel based on visual sensing

In order to obtain good welding quality, it is necessary to apply quality control because there are many influencing factors in laser welding process. The key to realize welding quality control is to obtain the quality information. Abundant weld quality information is contained in weld pool and keyhole. Aiming at Nd：YAG laser welding of stainless steel, a coaxial visual sensing system was constructed. The images of weld pool and keyhole were obtained. Based on the gray character of weld pool and keyhole in images, an image processing algorithm was designed. The search start point and search criteria of weld pool and keyhole edge were determined respectively.

Welding Deviation Detection Algorithm Based on Extremum of Molten Pool Image Contour

The welding deviation detection is the basis of robotic tracking welding, but the on-line real-time measurement of welding deviation is still not well solved by the existing methods. There is plenty of information in the gas metal arc welding（GMAW） molten pool images that is very important for the control of welding seam tracking. The physical meaning for the curvature extremum of molten pool contour is revealed by researching the molten pool images, that is, the deviation information points of welding wire center and the molten tip center are the maxima and the local maxima of the contour curvature, and the horizontal welding deviation is the position difference of these two extremum points. A new method of weld deviation detection is presented, including the process of preprocessing molten pool images, extracting and segmenting the contours, obtaining the contour extremum points, and calculating the welding deviation, etc. Extracting the contours is the premise, segmenting the contour lines is the foundation, and obtaining the contour extremum points is the key. The contour images can be extracted with the method of discrete dyadic wavelet transform, which is divided into two sub contours including welding wire and molten tip separately. The curvature value of each point of the two sub contour lines is calculated based on the approximate curvature formula of multi-points for plane curve, and the two points of the curvature extremum are the characteristics needed for the welding deviation calculation. The results of the tests and analyses show that the maximum error of the obtained on-line welding deviation is 2 pixels（0.16 ram）, and the algorithm is stable enough to meet the requirements of the pipeline in real-time control at a speed of less than 500 mm/min. The method can be applied to the on-line automatic welding deviation detection.

Quality assessment of friction-stir-welded aluminum alloy welds via three-dimensional force signals

An online detection technology must be developed for realizing the real-time control of friction stir welding.In this study,the three-dimensional force exerted on a material during friction stir welding was collected synchronously and the relationship between the forces and welding quality was investigated.The results indicated that the fluctuation period of the traverse force was equal to that of the lateral force during the stable welding stage.The phase difference between two horizontal forces wasπ/2.The values of the horizontal forces increased with welding speed,whereas their amplitudes remained the same.The proposed force model showed that the traverse and lateral forces conformed to an elliptical curve,and this result was consistent with the behavior of the measured data.The variational mode decomposition was used to process the plunge force.The intrinsic mode function that represented the real fluctuation in the plunge force varied at the same frequency as the spindle rotational speed.When tunnel defects occurred,the fluctuation period features were consistent with those obtained during normal welding,whereas the ratio parameter defined in this study increased significantly.

Welding deviation detection method based on weld pool image contour features

Automatic on-line detection of welding deviation based on machine vision is one of the key technologies of arc welding robot tracking welding,in which obtaining high quality weld pool image and accurate welding deviation detection algorithm are two important steps of tracking welding.Through the research and analysis of the weld pool image of gas metal arc welding(GMAW),it was found that the weld pool contains abundant welding information.First,the average gray value of the weld pool image can reflect the interference degree of arc to weld pool image and the heat input of welding process.Secondly,the tip of the weld pool image contour can reflect the center of the groove gap.Finally,the horizontal distance between the center coordinate of the wire contour and the tip coordinate of the weld pool image contour can reflect the welding deviation.On the basis of analyzing the characteristics of weld pool image,this paper proposes a new method of weld seam deviation detection,which includes the collection of weld pool image,image preprocessing,contour extraction and deviation calculation.The results of the tests and analyses showed that the maximum error of the on-line welding deviation obtained was about 2 pixels(0.17 mm)when the welding speed was≤60 cm/min,and the algorithm was stable enough to meet the requirements of real-time deviation detection for I-groove butt welding.The method can be applied to the on-line automatic welding deviation detection of arc welding robot.

Relationship between sound signal and weld pool status in plasma arc welding

The sound features of the weld pool status in plasma arc welding were systematically investigated after the sound signal was collected with a microphone. The results show that it is difficult to extract information about the weld pool status directly in time domain although the sound signal varies with the weld pool behaviors to some extent. The frequency spectra of the sound signal contain plenty of information about the weld pool behaviors. It is shown from the analysis of the sound generation mechanism that the sound signal of plasma arc welding is mainly caused by the weld pool oscillation, the power source fluctuation and so on. R S algorithm is designed to determine the weld pool status, and it is able to offer the feedback information for the closed loop control of the penetration quality of plasma arc welding. [

Numerical analysis of flow-thermal coupling in micro-plasma welding pool of thin-wall part

The formed characteristics of thin-wall part is studied when it is in the process of MPAW. Finite element method is used to sinmlate the temperature field coupling flow field in the welding of thin-wall part. It is found that because of the obvious effect of heat accumution in cross-section, where the distribution of temperature field area presents trapezoidal inverted approximately in the molten pool and the non-molten pool area presents level. The surface tension, the electromagnetic force and buoyancy are considered for analyzing the effects on the fluid flow of welding-pool. It can be obtained that the surface tension is the main driving force in the welding pool, which is far greater than electromagnetic force and buoyancy.

Supervised descent method for weld pool boundary extraction during fiber laser welding process

In order to obtain a high-quality weld during the laser welding process, extracting the characteristic parameters of weld pool is an important issue for automated welding. In this paper, the type 304 austenitic stainless steel is welded by a 5 kW high-power fiber laser and a high-speed camera is employed to capture the topside images of weld pools. Then we propose a robust visual-detection approach for the molten pool based on the supervised descent method. It provides an elegant framework for representing the outline of a weld pool and is especially efficient for weld pool detection in the presence of strong uncertainties and disturbances. Finally, welding experimental results verified that the proposed approach can extract the weld pool boundary accurately, which will lay a solid foundation for controlling the weld quality of fiber laser welding process.

Vision-based detection of weld pool width in TIG welding of copper-clad aluminum cable

In order to realize automatic control of the width of weld pool, a visual sensor system for the width of weld pool detection is developed. By initiative arc light, the image of copper plate weld pool is taken back of the torch through the process of weakening and filtering arc light. In order to decrease the time of processing video signals, analog circuit is applied in the processing where video signals is magnified, trimmed and processed into binary on the datum of dynamic average value, therefore the waveform of video signals of weld pool is obtained. The method that is used for detecting the width of weld pool is established. Results show that the vision sensing method for real-time detecting weld pool width to copper-clad aluminum wire TIG welding is feasible. The response cycle of this system is no more than 50 ms, and the testing precision is less than 0. 1 mm.

Numerical analysis of dynamic variation of weld pool geometry in fully-penetrated TIG welding

A mathematical model is developed for numerical analysis of thermal process in TIG welding with a moving arc, which is considered the double-elliptic distribution for both arc heat flux and arc pressure. An adjusting factor is introduced into the expression of arc pressure. The domain within which the arc heat flux is distributed non-symmetrically due to arc moving is selected appropriately, and three conditions for the domain to meet are described. The latent heat is taken into consideration by liquid fraction method. The dynamic development of weld pool geometry during TIG welding is analyzed numerically, and the effect of arc moving on the weld pool geometry is discussed. The experimental results show that the numerical analysis accuracy is obviously improved through taking the above-mentioned measures.

Numerical analysis for weld pool of pulsed TIG welding

A two-dimensional axisymmetric mathematical model of weld pool of pulsed TIG welding was established. Numerical simulation for weld pool of pulsed TIG welding was done using FLUENT software by selecting the appropriate boundary conditions and strongly coupled control equations. The distributions of temperature field and flow field of weld pool under the periodic change of welding current were obtained. According to the maximum temperature of upper and lower surface of workpiece and depth and width of weld pool, the distributions of temperature field and flow field under different pulsed frequencies and current duty cycles were obtained and periodic variation was analyzed under pulsed current. The analysis results show that with the increase of pulsed frequency, weld pool width increases slightly while depth decreases slightly, and with the increase of current duty cycle, the width and depth of weld pool both increase significantly, and the depth increases greatly.

Vision-based detection of MAG weld pool

Weld pool contains significant information about the welding process. The weld pool images of MAG welding are detected by LaserStrobe system. An algorithm for extracting weld pool edge is proposed according to the characteristics of MAG weld pool images. The maximum weld pool length and width are calculated. The measurement data can be used to verify the results of welding process simulation and to provide a good foundation for automatic control of MAG welding process.

Visual sensing and morphological image processing of weld pool in laser spot welding

A visual sensing system was established to monitor the weld pool in laser spot welding. The top-hat and bottom-hat transformation algorithms based on mathematical morphology were used to compensate for non-uniform contrast of weld pool edge. Moreover, the canny edge detector was applied to extract the weld paol profile. The edge detected results show that the morphological operation is obviously superior to the traditional contrast enhancement method. In addition, the combination of dilation and erosion was applied to eliminate the irrelevant edge details, and the smooth weld pool edge was acquired. Based on the image processing technology described above, the dynamic process of weld pool diameter during laser spot welding was obtained.

Classification of MAG weld pool image based on moment invariants and fisher

In order to discover characteristics of various kinds of weld pool image and identify a single image, seven image features are extracted to describe the corresponding surface formation quality by the moment iavariants method. An image feature matrix is composed by the seven characteristics. Then the matrix is projected on a line through the Fisher criterion in order to entirely distinguish various kinds of image features. And finally, transforming a seven-dimensional problem into a one-dimensional problem has been done. Compared with the three kinds of samples included in the arc welding process and quality weld pool visual image database, the images are classified into the three kinds such as superior weld formation in the condition of optimal gas flow, poor weld formation image in the condition of insuffwient gas flow, inferior weld formation in the condition of too low gas flow. Experiments show that the Fisher classification method based on moment invariants can recognize various weld pool images effectively, and it achieves a correct recognizable rate of 100%.

Specular reflection based sensing surface deformation of gas tungsten arc weld pool

A sensing system is developed to measure the weld pool boundary and pool suoface deformation in gas tungsten arc welding. LaserStrobe technique is used to eliminate the strong arc light inteoference, and specular reflection from the pool suoface is sensed to describe the relation between the deformed stripes and pool surface depression. Clear images of both the pool boundary and the deformed stripes edges are obtained during gas tungsten arc welding process, which lays foundation for realtime monitoring the pool suoface depression and weld penetration.

Weld pool image sensor for pulsed MIG welding

Visual image sensor is developed to detect the weld pool images in pulsed MIG welding. An exposure controller, which is composed of the modules of the voltage transforming, the exposure parameters presetting, the complex programmable logic device （CPLD） based logic controlling, exposure signal processing, the arc state detecting, the mechanical iris driving and so on, is designed at first. Then, a visual image sensor consists of an ordinary CCD camera, optical system and exposure controller is established. The exposure synchronic control logic is described with very-high-speed integrated circuit hardware description language （VHDL） and programmed with CPLD , to detect weld pool images at the stage of base current in pulsed MIG welding. Finally, both bead on plate welding and V groove filled welding are carried out, clear and consistent weld pool images are acquired.

DETECTION AND ANALYSIS OF WELD POOL SHAPE FOR CO_2 SHORT CIRCUITING ARC WELDING

A general industrial CCD( ICCD) camera is redesigned to detect the weld pool without arc at the period of short circuiting, so that the interference of arc and spatter during CO2 short circuiting arc welding is eliminated. Through the analysis of weld pool image, both size parameters (such as weld pool area A, weld pool length L1, L2 and weld pool breadth b) and contour parameters (b, which describe the curves of weld pool boundany) ,which could indicate the shape features of weld pool, had been defined to express weld pool information quantitatively. The investigation of the relationships between weld pool shape parameters and welding process parameters may be beneficial to the quality control of CO2 welding.

Numerical simulation of asymmetric fillet weld pool based on temperature field and flow field coupling

The temperature field and flow field were analyzed to solve the problems of unstable penetration and poor forming quality,which always happen in asymmetric fillet welding. In order to explore the effect of the welding parameters on welding and improve the quality of forming,a three-dimensional mathematical model of asymmetric fillet welding was established by using the finite element software COMSOL and the coupling equation. The model was considered about the surface tension gradient,the electromagnetic force,gravity and the effect of temperature,radiation and convection heat on physical properties of the material. The flow field and the growth pattern of the weld pool were analyzed,and the weld pool geometry under different welding currents was compared. The results show that,the thin metal was preferentially penetrated,and with the welding process the weld width expanded until the weld beam was fullpenetration. The heat affected zone was got from weld experiments,its shape and size agreed well with the simulation results,which verifies the validity of the theoretical analysis.