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Robotic welding solutions

Modern shipbuilding involves all kinds of advanced technologies of which some are very suitable for automation. Kranendonk has supplied robotized, CNC- and PLC-controlled, one piece production systems for the shipbuilding industry since 1989. Today’s ships must be built with double bottom hull structures. The production of these hull sections is complicated due to the narrow ‘boxes’ that have to be welded. Kranendonk has developed a special robotic welding system for this task.

The system

In order to access the double bottom hull boxes from the top, the robots are suspended from a carriage that offers three additional degrees of freedom (in X-, Y- and Z-direction). These carriages are running on top of a large gantry that travels over the double hull sections. An optimal solution is established when two robot carriages are mounted on one robot gantry. The robot itself is small, but still a full six-axis industrial welding robot. The Double Bottom Hull Welding Gantry is designed for a maximum block size of 16.000 x 24.000 x 3.500 mm. The minimum box size is 700 x 700 mm. Customized solutions can be supplied for other double bottom hull section dimensions.

Operation

Operation of robot welding gantries is automatic, and controlled by externally supplied data files. The robot welding gantry can be controlled from an operator panel, so that the operator has a view of the robot at work. During normal production, the robot system is controlled from a station at the shop floor. The robot welding gantry is able to weld transversal, longitudinal and vertical welds. During welding process monitoring and logging takes place to assure that quality standards are met.

 Double bottom hull welding gantry brochure 617.42 Kb

ARAC software

The welding gantry is supplied with Kranendonk ARAC software. The advanced ARAC software combines easy double bottom hull welding programming of the robots with simple graphical online cell and process control. No manual robot programming is required, since all production data is obtained directly from a CAD system database. Based upon ARAC Macro technology, the production data can even be entered in the workpreperation office.

RinasWeld software

The RinasWeld System is a system for automatic and unmanned weld analysis and off-line programming. All steps from importing a CAD model up to the generation of complete collision-free robot programs are done using the RinasWeld off-line system. This makes RinasWeld capable of handling fast changing designs of structures, without need of making new datafiles. The production preparation takes place without interfering with ongoing production, as the whole programming process is done at the office, often several days or weeks in advance. One hour of RinasWeld operator time creates approximately 15 hours of robot welding programs.

Main features

- One piece production system
- Automatic welding of double bottom hull sections
- Transversal, longitudinal and vertical welds
- Automatic weld seam location and tracking
- Simultanious welding of double fillet welds
- Possibilities for CAD/CAM data integration
- Welding process monitoring and logging
- Easy operation by only one supervisor
- Equipped with one or two robots