Research & Development
Development of a Double Wire MAG Welding System for Robots
2001.05 Japan Welding Society by Hikaru Yamamoto, Yutaka Takano, Toru Takatani, Manabu Hirakawa, Yu-ichi Ikegami
It is important to reduce production time and costs by raising productivity in industrial work. For the purpose of high efficiency steel welding, we developed a double wire MAG (DW MAG) welding system. The DW MAG welding method can increase deposition rates over those of conventional MAG welding with the same amount of heat input. This increase is accomplished by supplying a filler wire behind the molten pool formed by the consumable electrode wire in a conventional MAG welding set up. By inserting a filler wire we have demonstrated the ability to suppress the molten pool temperature. This results in several useful effects in an aluminum alloy such as the suppression of puckering phenomena and the decrease in sensitivity for weld metal solidification cracks, in addition to the increase in deposition rate. Using this approach, we applied the DW MAG welding method to steel, researched its basic character, and confirmed its practical usage for a Tee type fillet joint which is applied to a majority of box-type structure materials. The welding apparatus was then mounted in an articulated robot as an automatic welding apparatus, which was applied to practical applications of the welding process for structural materials in constructing equipment.
