Welding Path Planning And Offline Progamming Of The Workpiece Of Ship Body Section

Through manufacturing industry is developing, welding is still one of the most important process method in modern manufacturing industries such as shipping industry, automotive industry and heavy machine industry. Ship welding is one of the key technologies in shipping industry and using robot to do flexible manufacturing of welding is a trend in international shipping industry. Traditional robotic teaching method or numerical control method could not meet demands in some complicated work or high-auto technology need project. But off-line programming technology provides such a solution, which could upgrade the degree of automation and provide more efficient process and safer environment. At the same time, robots and CAD/CAM approach are combined to be the whole automatic production line. The basic information of off-line programming and also some history and present situation of robotic off-line programming are introduced in this thesis. First, general CAD information extraction method is discussed and a CAD information extraction method for workpiece of ship body section is executed. Second, general methods of robot job calibration are discussed and by using the orthogonality between workpiece and robot, a specialized and simplified method for the very workpiece of ship body section is carried out. And then, general methods of path-planning are discussed and a new engineering-oriented method for the very workpiece is proposed. The method not only takes advantage of the automation of theoretical calculations but also own the simplicity and accuracy of the manual teaching. In the last, the structure of the MOTOMAN robot job file is analyzed and the goal of robot welding job automatically generating is reached. Off-line programming software is completed to realize all the function that mentioned above.Finally, based on what is researched above, 2 robot welding off-line programming system platforms are established for the 2 different kind workpiece. The structure and workflow of the system are demonstrated. Workpieces with different size are test through the system and the result shows that the 2 platforms work correctly, reliably and with a certain range of applicability.