Agenda
1300-1309: Welcome – Greg Kilchenstein (OSD-MR) Presentation
1309-1310: Administrative Notes – Debbie Lilu (NCMS)
1310-1330: Welding Overview and Update – Dennis Harwig (EWI) Presentation
1340-1400: Hi-Temp Friction Stir Welding Tooling – Fardad Azarmi (NDSU) & Martin McDonnell (US Army FCDD-GVS) Presentation
1400-1420: Digitally Transforming Welding – Anu Gupta (Microsoft)
1420-1440: Portable Tactical Welder – Tim McGrath / Matt Clancy (UltraTech)
1440-1500: Wrap-Up – Greg Kilchenstein (OSD-MR) Presentation
Minutes
Event: On 24 November 2020, the Joint Technology Exchange Group (JTEG), in coordination with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), hosted a virtual forum on “Welding Inspection, Operations & Training”.
Purpose: The purpose of this forum was to examine and share information on new welding technologies and processes available to the DoD maintenance community. The forum provided descriptions of capabilities employed by the military Services as well as programs from both academia and industry.
Welcome: Greg Kilchenstein (OSD-MR) welcomed everyone to the forum and thanked the presenters and all the listeners for their attendance. He also stated how important welding operations are in driving sustainment costs and readiness in the DoD maintenance community.
Administrative: This was an open forum. The presentations, along with questions and answers, were conducted through Adobe Connect. None of the four presentations were available online at the JTEG website at https://jteg.ncms.org/ during the brief but efforts will be made to post versions after the forum. A separate audio line was used. We had over 70 participants from across DOD, industry, and academia join in the forum.
Welding Overview and Update – Dennis Harwig (EWI) described EWI as an independent, self-sustaining manufacturing technology center of excellence whose mission is to deliver innovative technical solutions in manufacturing processes that elevate customers’ competitiveness. Their largest customer is the U.S. Navy. Dennis discussed several federal programs and collaboration examples, and described numerous projects to include “Through-Transmission Laser Welding of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites”, “Tele-Welding Remote Operation of Shipyard Welding”, “NSRP Robotic Arc Directed Energy Deposition (DED) Additive Manufacturing (AM) for Shipbuilding”, “NSRP Thick Section Hybrid Laser Arc Welding for Shipbuilding”, and “Micro-joining and Ultrasonic Welding”.
Hi-Temp Friction Stir Welding Tooling – Fardad Azarmi (NDSU) introduced friction stir welding (FSW) and FSW Tooling, as well as an introduction to thermal spraying. He then described a project to develop new tools to advance FSW technology to increase its efficiency and service life while decreasing the maintenance tooling costs. The study involves the evaluation of the capability of a thermal spray solution used to deposit high temperature materials onto FSW tools.
Digitally Transforming Welding – Dawn White (Perisense) briefly discussed a demonstration designed to show that welding defects can be discovered using acoustic sensors and artificial intelligence. Anu Gupta (Microsoft) then described the “Book of Dreams” involving a Microsoft digital transformation approach in coordination with Industry 4.0. He stated that even manufacturing organizations will have to think about being a software organization in a horizon based transformation. The vision connects design and engineering and maps to business drivers, objectives and key benefits. He provided an example from Fujitsu.
Portable Tactical Welder – Tim McGrath / Matt Clancy (UltraTech) took us to their website at https://www.spillcontainment.com/products/tactical-welder/ to demonstrated their portable tactical welder which has the potential to change the way emergency welding jobs or smaller remote welding projects are performed. The welder is completely battery-powered using high capacity lithium-ion batteries and a 7 amp intelligent charger. Completely portability it is designed to be stored/transported in the included backpack. The tactical welder is powerful and capable of performing high-quality MIG welds and flux-cored welds.
Q&A – A Q&A occurred after each briefer finished their presentation. Questions and answers will be posted on the JTEG website with these minutes.
Closing Comments: Greg Kilchenstein thanked the presenters for their contributions and all the work being done to support welding efforts across the DoD, academia, and industry. He suggested continuing the information exchange beyond the forum and the importance of collaboration within the DoD maintenance community.
Action Items:
- Obtain cleared briefing slides from the presenters and post to the JTEG website at https://jteg.ncms.org/.
Next JTEG Meeting: The next scheduled JTEG virtual forum is 7 December 2020, 1:00 – 3:00 pm EST. The topic is “Maintenance Innovation Challenge (MIC) Finalists Presentations”.
POC this action is Ray Langlais, rlanglais@lmi.org, (571) 633-8019
Forum Q&A
Welding Overview and Update – Dennis Harwig (EWI)
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Q1. What is the next frontier for welding technology? How could DoD benefit from supporting this next leap?
A1. It revolves around Industry 4.0 and includes simulation and modeling, chaining models together, machine learning, big data, automation, etc. Everything has a little touch to it.
Q2. On laser Crack welding. What should be the size of crack to be repairable by this technique?
A2. That is outside my field of expertise. Send me an email and I will put you in touch with the subject matter expert who can answer your question.
Q3. Has AWS D20.1 ‘Specification for Fabrication of Metal Components using Additive Manufacturing’ been compared or contrasted with respect to NAVY qualification TBs?
A3. Yes, the Navy is leveraging AWS and their standards to harmonize the approaches and build materials. They can use this process to develop builds for qualification.
Hi-Temp Friction Stir Welding Tooling – Fardad Azarmi (NDSU)
Q1. What is the benefit of thermal spray versus cold spray technology?
A1. Cold spray is considered one of the thermal spray technologies. The difference is that cold spray uses kinetic energy to fuse in solid form. All other thermal spray technologies melt particles.
Q2. In terms of the HAZ or unaffected base metal, what is the maximum interpass temperature directly adjacent to or 1″ away from the weld toe; for general friction stir welding (FSW), cold spray or artificial intelligence applications upon termination of the weld between carbon steel or Aluminum?
A2. FSW depends on the materiel and rotation speed and what you want to join together. There are three different regions with thermally affected zones. The temperatures vary but examples are upwards of 520 C with steel up to 1200 C. For aluminum the temperature has to drop significantly.
Q3. What are the forces required for the FSW tools for typical applications? Assuming this is a main limitation to portability, are there plans for portable FSW equipment on the horizon?
A3. The Navy is very interested. We already have a couple prototypes. The Army is also interested. While portable would be advantageous, the primary capability is joining different materials.
Digitally Transforming Welding – Anu Gupta (Microsoft)
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Q1. No Questions
A1.
Portable Tactical Welder – Tim McGrath / Matt Clancy (UltraTech)
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Q1. What is the battery life?
A1. You can expect an hour of welding.
Q2. How much does it weigh?
A2. 27 lbs.
Q3. What kind of welding is the Tactical Welder capable of?
A3. The Welder is capable of MIG and flux core welding using a wire feed gun.
Q4. What size wire does the Tactical Welder use?
A4. The Welder can use wire from 0.030” to 0.052”.
Q5. How long does it take to recharge the battery pack?
A5. From full discharge, the battery pack takes approximately 2.5 hours to charge fully. From partial discharge, it takes approximately 1 to 1.3 hours.