Objective
The European industry has to consider an annual lost of several billion of ECU due to wear and corrosion with tremendous economical and environmental impact. Although, many parts affected by wear during operation are worth to be recovered, adequate repair services are often questionable due to economical reasons caused by technical and technological deficits. In order to promote the repair welding business. its competitiveness on the international market, and to overcome existing technical and technological problems, the proposed project intends to improve productivity, working conditions, cost-effectiveness, and product quality as well as life times of the repaired parts by introduction of advanced technologies for process control and automation into the field of repair welding. Focusing in particular to the improvement of controlled repair capabilities combined with mechanised or robotised repair welding, the key research activities will address: the sensor-driven identification of wear conditions with integrated knowledge-based repair planning capabilities the integration of monitoring and online-process control capabilities with special regard to relevant process conditions, quality of the welds, and life-time extension of the recovered parts the introduction of repair welding automation to increase productivity and to guarantee reproducable process conditions, and the design and realisation of a prototype demo platform for practical tests and to provide practical repair options to commercial application. Besides economical benefits directed to the repair service itself, the overall industrial and environmental benefits for the European industry derived from the project results are obvious in terms of reduced repair costs, improved repair quality, extended life cycles, and significant savings of valuable resources like raw material, energy etc. combined with a reduction of worn parts which are normally w ould have been determinated to be ready for the scrap.
Funding Scheme
EAW - Exploratory awardsCoordinator
B25 8LD Birmingham
United Kingdom
Participants (1)
66512 Neunkirchen
