Valeria Golubykh, Director of Svarka/Welding Exhibition, welcomed all visitors and experts of the welding community reminding that Svarka/Welding Exhibition 2020 would take place in an offline format on November 18–20, 2020.

"The topic of today’s session will be represented in the framework of the exhibition. Today though specialists will explore such topics as offline programming of welding processes, robot welders with artificial intelligence, cutting-edge developments and digital planning of welding works", – moderator explained.

The educational program was presented by Oleg Panchenko, Director of the Kawasaki-Polytech Centre of Robotics, Head of the Laboratory of Light Materials and Structures under Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. He told about a method of connecting which is not wide-spread in Russia – friction stir process, which is a relatively new method of getting permanent connection.

"To my mind, this method is interesting and unique because of a dew reasons. It’s peculiar, because connection is formed in a solid basis due to plasticization of material ensured by the process of friction. The first stage – embedment – is when a rotating tool bores into the body of material to plasticize it through friction. The second stage is maturation that evolves right into welding", – the speaker elaborated.

According to Oleg Panchenko, one of peculiarities of friction welding is that unlike with electric welding the entire process takes 10 times less (a high speed of connection) and features the following benefits: a solid phase, a wide range of welded materials, a high degree of automation, a lack of harmful vapours or radiation. It’s applied in cosmonautics, mechanic engineering, ship building, railroad transport, aviation and rocket science.

"Sometimes a few kinds are used – there are special portal-like machines, robots with parallel kinematics and robots with axis kinematics. By the way, in our laboratory we have been developing this method since 2014, but there are no regulations for it in our country despite international standards", – Director of the Centre added.

The issue of robotic automation was presented by Roman Timofeev, Deputy Director of Robowizard Ltd (official distributor of Kawasaki Robotics on the territory of Russia and CIS countries), in his contribution.

According to him, Russia is falling behind 20 times on an average number of robots, which is 100 industrial robots for10,000 workers, while there are 5 robots for the same number of workers in our country.

"There are many opportunities that are not used, unfortunately.We are ready to offer various solutions for this problem. Kawasaki is not about bikes only. About 130 years ago the company started with ship building. There was also aviation, space and, of course industrial robots the company started dealing with about 50 years ago", – Roman Timofeev noted.

The expert cited Ravil Khisamutdinov from KAMAZ PJSC to give an example: ‘60-70% of economic effect is a result of higher performance achieved with automated equipment in comparison with manual one. 15-20% is a result of improved and stabilized quality. 10-15% is a result of economy on salaries. Introducing robots you should think not about economy on salaries, but about high performance instead.’

Roman Timofeev is confident that automation is required for large amount of works, high requirements to the quality and significant effect of a human factor.

"There are three important factors that need to be in the focus, though we often face stereotypes.Robotic welding means improved quality of products and increased performance, reduction of overhead costs, flexibility and safety. Besides, a prerequisite of success is a correctly formulated objective, the right (adapted) product, the right partner (system integrator) with the embedding experience, and the right equipment. We always advise going from the simple to the complicated. Kawasaki opened a technological centre in Russia, a laboratory, where one could get a closer look at robots, create and refine technologies, learn and receive an advise", – a representative of the company explained.

Alexei Korablev, a Chair of the Board of NPO Creonomyca HiTech & Engineering Cluster, academician of the Academy of Engineering, addressed several aspects of robotic automation.

First, specificity of welding works with application of artificial intelligence.

Welding works by Inrotech based on artificial intelligence without programming, or drafts, or welders. It’s a mobile robot that suits for ship building or any other industry, performs 3D laser scanning, then programs a welded joint, and after scanning starts welding itself.

"It works fully autonomously, artificial intelligence does everything itself. A similar robot is Inrotech-ClassicCompact. It is designed for welding in any confined space or in a double bottom premise to weld panels", – Chair emphasized.

Secondly, offline programming in the context of digital twins.

"Our group develops competences connected with creating of digital twins in the program product called Visual Components. Digital twins are imitation models that can dynamically represent all production processes that occur during robotic welding. Visual Components allows forming a digital twin, and unlike other program products it’s an open platform where one can create their own applications or engage external developers, from a single item of equipment to the entire spot face. An important feature is an integrated system of process preparation. When the technology is launched, digital twins are used for controlling", – Alexei Korablev assured.

And, third, a system for digital planning and management of welding production: "Speaking about this product in accordance with international standards, it’s MOM, while in terms of production operations management it’s ISA-95. It’s a very user-friendly system that allows planning and controlling several sites through a web interface. Moreover, since the system is a cloud one, contractors can also connect to it".

Experts who spoke at the Conference noted the importance of the topic and expressed their willingness to discuss issues of Industry 4.0 in more details during the Business Program of the Exhibition on November 18–20, 2020.

Sponsor of the event is Gazprombank (Joint Stock Company).