Process monitoring and industrial informatics for online optimization of Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) in Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) – Industry 4.0 for robotic additive remanufacturing of aeroengine components

摘要

Industry 4.0, the scheme that drives the fourth industrial revolution, has been, since its conception, reshaping the manufacturing industry. To advance current industrial chains into the smart factories of the future, cyber-physical systems are monitored and communicate with each other to ensure transparent interoperability, giving birth to the emerging field of industrial informatics. To enable the repair and recycling of high value jet engine compressor blades, additive manufacturing is utilized. The complex geometries and asymmetrical wear of the blades require robotic welding systems to be trained by experienced human welding engineers in order to be able to adapt to differing components. Demonstrated in this paper, process monitoring and industrial informatics are introduced to the adaption of Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS) utilized by a developing robotic system for the additive remanufacturing of aeroengine components. Using a novel variant of Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW), the robotic welding system under development is a product of an industry-academia collaboration between the Enabling Sciences for Intelligent Manufacturing Group (ESIM) of the University of Sheffield and VBC Instrument Engineering Ltd.