Aluminum Welding

Application Summary
To gain greater fuel efficiency, auto makers are incorporating lighter components into their new car designs. Manufacturers are increasingly interested in fabricating auto components from aluminum, which are much lighter than the same components made out of steel. The problem is that the manufacturing techniques developed for steel are not always suited to work in aluminum, and therefore new manufacturing techniques need to be developed.

That’s why researchers at a major auto manufacturer are investigating better ways to optimize the welding of aluminum performed by robots. The quality of the weld is a function of several factors such as the arc frequency and magnitude, the distance from the welder tip to the aluminum, and the thickness of the aluminum being welded. In order to quantify these variables, the researchers mounted sensors on the welding apparatus.

Potential Solution
The first system considered as a data acquisition solution was a 12-bit digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) with custom signal conditioning and low pass filtering. However, this solution was expensive – typically a 12-bit DSO costs about $10,000. Furthermore, it would have required custom programming. Since researchers did not consider themselves programmers, developing the skills needed to program the test system would have been time intensive.

IOtech’s Solution
The researchers selected IOtech’s WaveBook^™ PC-based data acquisition system for their application. The analog signals were conditioned by an IOtech WBK13A^™ signal conditioning card. The 8-channel programmable card provides low-pass filtering and simultaneous sample and hold functions in order to correlate channels and eliminate the highest frequency. The IOtech system was chosen for its ability to record a large amount of data to the PC’s hard drive in real time. This feature allowed the engineers to examine long welds. Another feature that the researchers found attractive was the system’s included WaveView^™ Out-of-the-Box^™ software. WaveView allowed them to set up their application quickly and easily without programming. PostView^™ software, which was also included, let them review the data immediately after the test to verify if the test was valid.

A major automaker selected the WaveBook system for research on aluminum welding.