• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.66-72
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• 2005

An electromagnetic inductive sensor consisted of one exciter and three separated (triple) detectors has been developed for both tracking the weld seam of a workpiece and controlling the sensor-to-workpiece distance (height) simultaneously. The left and right detectors are used to track the seam, while the fore and the other two detectors allow the sensor to determine the height and the gap width by being coupled their outputs together. A series of experiments with the proposed sensor located above a mild steel plate containing a weld seam of gap are carried out to examine the feasibility of the sensor. The results revealed that the proposed sensor could fairly well track the desired seam and also well control the height to be constant even when the gap width of the seam varied. The gap width can be also determined during the seam tracking by using the sensor outputs. As a consequence, these can provide the developed sensor with substantial improvement for industrial uses with respect to the previous electromagnetic sensors being used for the weld seam tracking.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.380-389
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• 2011

Esthetic appeal of a product is often affected by the appearance quality of seams forming between components of the product. The appearance quality of seams is, however, assessed in a very subjective and qualitative manner that heavily depends on the evaluator. This paper presents a preliminary study to quantify such assessment by formulating a quantitative index which is a linear function of the seam gap sizes, seam gap ranges, and the size uniformity of seam gaps. By considering a highly simplified problem of a drawer system and utilizing subjective assessments by twenty evaluators, the index has been formulated. The validity of this index has been confirmed by observing its behavior with changes of the component tolerances. Also, the utility of this index has been demonstrated through a selective assembly scheme applied to the drawer system problem. Though the index formulated in this study for seam appearance quality may be useful, future studies are necessary to make the model readily applicable to real problems.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.23 no.7 s.184
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• pp.59-66
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• 2006

In laser welding, automatic seam tracking is important to adjust the laser head position in real time as it moves along the seam. Also if the joint gap is occurred, filling the missing material into the joint gap is necessary to prevent welding defects and bad welding quality. In general, the joint gap width is not constant along the seam due to a variety of reason. So it is essential to control the filler wire speed into the joint gap to acquire good welding quality. This paper describes an intelligent filler wire feeding device which can control 3-dimensional seam tracking and the filler wire speed by measuring the gap position and the joint gap width in laser welding. We call this device as Smart Micro Control system(SMC). To achieve this objective, we assessed weld quality in 2mm sheets of A16061 which had various gap width by using the developed device. From the experimental results, It was found the possibility that the developed device could be used in welding various 3-dimensional structures.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.79-88
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• 1996

For improvement in productivity and weld quality, weld seam tracking and welding parameter control are very essential in the welding of a structure which can not be cxactly fit-up due to mismatch, discontinous gap, deflection, etc.. In this study, an automatic weld seam tracking system is developed for I-butt joint structure, and the system consists of XYZ working table, vision sensor and user interface program. In the developed vision sensor system, an image projection algorithm for weld-line detection and an adaptive current control algorithm for gap variation were implemented. The user interface program developed in this study by basing on the objct oriented concept could provide very convenient way to utilize the tracking system with the pull-down menu driven structure. The developed system showed a good seam tracking and weld quality control capability corresponding to deflected weld lines and gap variations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.950-955
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• 2005

This paper describes an intelligent filler wire feeding device which can control 3- dimensional seam tracking and the filler wire speed by measuring the gap position and the joint gap width in laser welding. By means of visual sensor controlled filling the missing material into the joint gap and 3 dimensional seam tracking, lineup errors from manufacturing tolerances and the repeatability of lineup jigs and weld robot can be balanced and at an even seam quality which avoids weld defects. In this paper, we assessed weld quality in 2mm sheets of A16061 which had various gap width by using the intelligent filler wire feeding device.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2014

The central seam, the vertical 'line' between doors, in the front view of a refrigerator must have its gap and flush within certain ranges to meet functional and aesthetic requirements. The conventional criteria for gap and flush control in the industry are to keep the gap and flush within certain ranges at each of various points along the seam. For aesthetics, however, the uniformity of the gap is also as important because a 'tapered' seam is negatively perceived by human eyes. This paper shows a case study of tolerance design for a refrigerator door system. It presents a step-by-step procedure, which consists of datum flow chain analysis, identification of assembly features, computer modeling of feature tolerances, assembly operations and measurements, tolerance simulation, and tolerance adjustments based on the simulation results. It is found that extra care may need to be used to satisfy the aesthetical criterion for gap uniformity.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.706-713
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• 2002

In the multi-pass welding of pressure vessels or ships, the mechanical touch sensor system is generally used together with a manipulator to measure the gap and depth of the narrow gap to perform seam tracking. Unfortunately, such mechanical touch sensors may commit measuring errors caused by the eterioration of the measuring device. An automation system of narrow gap multi-pass welding using a laser vision system which can track the seam line of narrow gap and which can control welding power has been developed. The joint profile of the narrow gap, with 250mm depth and 28mm width, can be captured by laser vision camera. The image is then processed for defining tracking positions of the torch during welding. Then, the real-time correction of lateral and vertical position of the torch can be done by the laser vision system. The adaptive control of welding conditions like welding Currents and welding speeds, can also be performed by the laser vision system, which cannot be done by conventional mechanical touch systems. The developed automation system will be adopted to reduce the idle time of welders, which happens frequently in conventional long welding processes, and to improve the reliability of the weld quality as well.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2002

In the multi-pass welding of pressure vessels or ships, the mechanical touch sensor system is generally used together with a manipulator to measure the gap and depth of the narrow gap to perform seam tracking. Unfortunately, such mechanical touch sensors may commit measuring errors caused by the deterioration of the measuring device. An automation system of narrow gap multi-pass welding using a laser vision system which can track the seam line of narrow gap and which can control welding power has been developed. The joint profile of the narrow gap, with 250mm depth and 28mm width, can be captured by laser vision camera. The image is then processed for defining tracking positions of the torch during welding. Then, the real-time correction of lateral and vertical position of the torch can be done by the laser vision system. The adaptive control of welding conditions like welding currents and welding speeds, can also be performed by the laser vision system, which cannot be done by conventional mechanical touch systems. The developed automation system will be adopted to reduce the idle time of welders, which happens frequently in conventional long welding processes, and to improve the reliability of the weld quality as well.

• Fibers and Polymers
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.71-76
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• 2003

We evaluated the seam characteristics with finishing, seaming and sealing processes and seam Puckering behavior of the breathable waterproof fabrics with laser scan. There were differences in 99% significant level between the seamed fabric and the sealed fabric. Seam breakage was initiated with the breakage of sewing thread, so the seam strength after seaming was almost uniform. The sewn seam strength and elongation increased with sealing process in all finishing methods. Pucker grade of laminating type was generally much higher than that of the coating type. We confirmed that wave length and amplitude have more important meaning than the number of weave in the breathable waterproof fabrics. The puckering in breathable waterproof fabrics is mainly occurred by inherent and feeding pucker. The former if due to the insertion of sewing thread and the littler is caused by differential feeding when two pieces of fabric are fed into the gap between a press foot and needle plate.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.119-133
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• 1998

To implement full automation in pipe welding, it si most important to develop special sensors and their related systems which act like human operator when detecting irregular groove conditions. In this study, an automatic pipe Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) system was proposed to full control pipe welding procedure with intelligent sensor systems. A five-axes manipulator was proposed for welding torch to automatically access to exact welding position when pipe size and welding angle were given. Pool status and torch position were measured by using a weld-pool image monitoring and processing technique in root-pass welding for weld seam tracking and weld pool control. To overcome the intensive arc light, pool image was captured at the instance of short circuit of welding power loop. Captured image was processed to determine weld pool shape. For weld seam tracking, the relative distance of a torch position from the pool center was calculated in the extracted pool shape to move torch just onto the groove center. To control penetration of root pas, gap was calculated in the extracted pool image, and then weld conditions were controlled for obtaining appropriate penetration. welding speed was determined with a fuzzy logic, and welding current and voltage were determined from a data base to correspond to the gap. For automatic fill-pass welding, the function of human operator of real time weld seam control can be substituted by a sensor system. In this study, an arc sensor system was proposed based on a fuzzy control logic. Using the proposed automatic system, root-pass welding of pipe which had gap variation was assured to be appropriately controlled in welding conditions and in torch position by showing sound welding result and good seam tracking capability. Fill-pass welding by the proposed system also showed very successful result by tracking along the offset welding line without any control of human operator.