Real time physical simulation for virtual welding training

Abstract

Modern visualization methods facilitate the user's better and deeper understanding of the welding process. Current methods and visualization systems are based on empirical groundwork. Simulation software on the basis of physical models is put at the disposal of the user, which facilitates a visualization of the weld joint geometry and temperature distribution. In this way corrupt weld joints can be detected and handled in advance. This leads to an increase of quality and profitability. For this reason, this approach offers a new benchmark in the world of electric arc technology and sets a basis for a variety of future visions. Physical welding models are so far optimized and reduced in order to facilitate a real-time simulation. The reduction of the models was achieved by a combination of analytical solutions with optimized numerical algorithms for partial differential equations. These measures facilitate the execution of a welding simulation in a very short time. Experimental support (provided by AUDI and Fronius) upon the calibration leads to well-validated and reliable results. With modern visualization methods the results are user-friendly and presentable. A demonstrator in the form of an expansion of the Fronius Virtual Welding system was set up. The demonstrator contains an offline and an online mode. The offline mode performs the analysis after the welding. The online mode performs the real-time (simulation) analysis during welding. The development is based on results from preceding developments such as the Virtual Welding System (Fronius, FH JOANNEUM) and SimWeld Software (RWTH Aachen).