WeldComputer Awarded Patent for New Resistance Welding Technique
WeldComputer Corporation has announced its latest U.S. patent for new technology that will benefit resistance welding operations around the world. This technology has allowed the company to introduce an innovative new process that provides a practical method for instrumenting new and existing welding guns to obtain real-time information needed to assess and control the quality of each weld as it is being formed.
For the past 30 years, WeldComputer technology has been routinely deployed on press type and rocker arm welders to reliably monitor weld thermal response, one of the parameters needed to evaluate weld nugget growth and adaptively control the welding process. However, according to Robert Cohen, CEO of WeldComputer, this type of measurement has been less than ideal in automotive applications. “In the case of automotive grade welding guns,” he explains, “due to nonlinear high friction in the actuating mechanism, only a portion of the thermal expansion and contraction translates into measurable motion. The remaining portion of the thermal response causes deflection of the linkages and arms of the welding apparatus instead. This problem is further exacerbated when servos are involved, because they often have sluggish and inconsistent responses to quick thermal mechanical transients.”
The new patent covers an innovative method for formulating a composite measurement of the actuator mechanism motion and apparatus deflection linkages together, which provides a more accurate measurement than either could provide alone. “Until now there has not been a practical method of reliably obtaining this type of information on the majority of automotive grade type welding guns in operation worldwide,” Cohen sums up. “As demand for detecting bad welds – and more importantly preventing them from occurring to begin with – continues to increase, deployment of this new technology will play a pivotal role in improving weld quality and reducing product defects down the road in automotive and other commercial welding applications.”
WeldComputer Corporation manufactures a broad line of welding controls and monitors for commercial, military and aerospace resistance welding applications. WeldComputer controls and monitors work with spot, projection, seam, flash, butt, stud and capacitive discharge welding equipment to improve weld quality, increase weld consistency and throughput, reduce scrap, and improve worker safety, helping to reduce costs and improve quality assurance beyond what can be achieved with conventional equipment. WeldComputer adaptive controls have been granted military approval to eliminate destructive testing.