Automated Welding System for Cast Iron Pipe Reinforcement Plates: Design and Experimental Validation

With the rapid development of construction engineering, cast iron pipes have become an important component of building structures. Currently, most companies still use manual welding for the welding of cast iron pipe reinforcement plates, which often results in low welding quality and efficiency. In response to the urgent need of companies to improve production efficiency, it is of great significance to study an automatic welding system suitable for cast iron pipe reinforcement plates. This article designs an automatic welding system for cast iron pipe reinforcement plates to meet the urgent needs of companies.

Firstly, this article introduces the characteristics and applications of cast iron pipe reinforcement plates in traditional building structures. The reinforcement plates of cast iron pipes are composed of three plates with different shapes, which require precise welding to meet the requirements of structural strength and stability. The quality and work efficiency of traditional manual welding methods are difficult to guarantee. Based on field research and combined with the needs of companies, using robotic automatic welding technology is a feasible solution.

Next, this article details the key technologies of the automatic welding system for cast iron pipe reinforcement plates, including welding robots, automatic feeding devices, cast iron pipe moving rails, rectangular coordinate robots, and PLC control programs. Welding robots are used for welding to ensure the quality and efficiency of welding. The automatic feeding device uses a cylinder as its driving element, which can meet the requirements of speed and accuracy for the production line, and automatically obtains and positions cast iron pipe reinforcement plates. The rectangular coordinate robot Z-axis mechanical arm is used to grip cast iron pipe reinforcement plates of different specifications. The cast iron pipe moving rail is responsible for moving different types of cast iron pipes to the welding position and automatically rotating them during the welding process as required by the task. The Siemens S7-1200 is used to control the entire system to ensure stable operation of each link.

Finally, this article verifies the feasibility and technological advancement of the automatic welding system for cast iron pipe reinforcement plates through experiments. The experimental results show that the system can efficiently and stably complete the automation welding of cast iron pipe reinforcement plates, which meets national standards and the task requirements of companies.