Four Reasons to Choose Automated Pipe Welding with Robots

Robot­ic tube and auto­mat­ed pipe weld­ing con­tin­ue to grow in pop­u­lar­i­ty. Take a quick look at the main rea­sons why:

1. New Technologies: 

Weld­ing awk­ward­ly-shaped pip­ing and tub­ing can prove very dif­fi­cult, even for a robot­ic welder. But recent devel­op­ments in robot­ic tech­nolo­gies have paved the way for sophis­ti­cat­ed robot­ic pipe weld­ing solu­tions. Some of the lat­est enhance­ments include:

Sen­sors: When equipped with var­i­ous sens­ing sys­tems, a pipe weld­ing robot can actu­al­ly ​“feel” where a weld should be. For instance, tac­tile and prox­im­i­ty sen­sors can work togeth­er to locate and posi­tion a torch cor­rect­ly. This is an ide­al sys­tem for small-batch pipe and tube welding.

Through-the-Arc Track­ing: With through-the-arc track­ing, the begin­ning and end of a weld­ment can be inputted and the robot will trace the path in between. This saves time and increas­es the weld accu­ra­cy of arc weld­ing applications.

Off-line Pro­gram­ming: New off-line pro­gram­ming soft­ware leads to high­er-qual­i­ty pipe and tube weld­ing and effi­cien­cy. Pro­gram­ming does­n’t have to lead to addi­tion­al sys­tem down time. Instead, all the unique angles, diam­e­ters, and curves can be care­ful­ly pro­grammed through com­put­er soft­ware. Such off-line pro­gram­ming also allows pro­gram­mers to test out var­i­ous weld setups.

2. Flex­i­bil­i­ty:

Robot­ic arms offer unmatched dex­ter­i­ty and reach. While man­u­al pipe and tube weld­ing often requires fre­quent stops and starts for re-posi­tion­ing the torch, robots can realign with­out paus­ing. Hard-to-reach angles and orbital welds are also less tax­ing for indus­tri­al robots.

3. Weld Quality:

Robots are able to per­form top qual­i­ty welds with high­er depo­si­tion lev­els and con­sis­ten­cy, even at awk­ward angles. With robot­ic pipe and tube weld­ing the ther­mal impact is reduced as well, min­i­miz­ing dis­tor­tion and the need for lat­er corrections.

4. Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty:

Sim­ply put, robot­ic pipe and tube weld­ing is more reli­able. With ful­ly auto­mat­ed or even hybrid robot and man­u­al pipe weld­ing, there are few­er mis­takes and defects. This in turn saves time and mate­ri­als. Auto­mat­ed weld­ing robots pro­duce con­sis­tent pipe weld qual­i­ty and through­put every time.

Inter­est­ed in automat­ing your pipe or tube weld­ing appli­ca­tion? Call Robots​.com to find out if robot­ic weld­ing automa­tion fits your needs: 877−762−6881 or con­tact experts online.