FOCUS ON WELDING
IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS
“ Through a combination of streak methods and sensor measurements at its Swiss welding laboratory , Wolfram Industrie aims to optimise the TIG welding process and reduce costs for industrial applications .”
Wolfram Industrie GmbH details practical new industry applications for informative analysis methods of inert gas flows used for TIG welding . It believes that up to several hundred euros ( per production day ) can be saved by specifically optimising the gas supply for the respective application .
By
Matthias Schaffitz ,
Application Engineer , Wolfram Industrie GmbH .
Matthias Schaffitz is an application engineer at Wolfram Industrie GmbH ’ s research and production centre in Winterthur , Switzerland .
Downstream inspection and rework accounts for about 50 per cent of the TIG welding cost , on average . With stricter quality standards , the proportion of these work steps quickly increases to twothirds of the production process because tighter inspection cycles and more elaborate repair welding may be required .
This effort can be considerably reduced through selection of the inert gas parameters . However , these factors can usually only be evaluated based on their effects . A correction is possible , at best , for the next workpiece and may necessitate changes to other process factors . Streak methods can help to determine the inert gas parameters in a timely manner . However , precise imaging methods have only been used exclusively in academic research to date . Their transfer to industrial practice has not been feasible .
Wolfram Industrie has now built a bridge to cross this gap between industry and research . Through a combination of streak methods and sensor measurements at its Swiss welding laboratory , the company offers development services and consultancy to optimise the TIG welding process ( especially for industrial applications ).
44 | ismr . net | ISMR February 2025