SMWA: A CAD-based decision support system for the efficient design of welding

Welding is one of the most widely used permanent joining technologies in assembly. As with other manufacturing processes, manufacturing feasibility and efficiency of weld components should be considered early in the part design stages to avoid costly redesign and delay. While there have been considerable research interests in weldability assessment and predictive modeling of welding distortion, under current practices, only after the part has been designed, welding engineers start working on the welding process plan. One significant reason for the current practice is the complexity involved in the decision and selection of feasible welding parameters. Therefore, there is a great need for a methodology that can incorporate benefits from Concurrent Engineering (CE) concepts into weld design. The objective of this study is to develop such a methodology to avoid welding infeasibility due to lack of manufacturability evaluations at the design stages and to generate a more complete and improved welding design in a shorter time. A CAD-based decision support system, named Sheet Metal Welding Advisor (SMWA), is developed for the purpose. The advantages include: (1) integration of CE concepts in welding design, thus improving the overall efficiency of design and manufacturing practices, (2) automatic generation of optimum welding parameters and associated manufacturing data for economic considerations, and (3) a great potential for the real-world applications.