Dutilleul, T. orcid.org/0000-0002-1138-4279, Widdison, R. and Kyffin, W. (2024) Development of electron optical capabilities for manufacturing of large components by electron beam welding. Welding in the World, 68 (4). pp. 819-828. ISSN 0043-2288
Abstract
Electron beam welding (EBW) is a fast process that shows promise to be used for high-productivity welding of thick-section components in the nuclear industry. Nuclear AMRC has been working for many years on developing the use of EBW for small modular reactor (SMR) applications, such as joining thick-section pressure vessel components. The major strength of EB is the single-pass process that can radically reduce fabrication times. This is also one of the major issues with EB. The stress on the welding operator is high as any error generally means failure. In chamber EB operation, such as the Pro-beam K2000 system at Nuclear AMRC, once the chamber is closed, the only interaction between the operator and the work piece is through a camera or the electron beam. Tracking features of the material or the joint line is important to gather as much information on the situation as possible. Nuclear AMRC has used the functions of the Pro-beam multimode to gain reliability during welding. The seam tracker relies on electron optical image analysis to assess the deviation of the beam from the joint line, but it is the duty of the operator to assess whether the correction should be applied. The team has demonstrated that based on the results of the seam tracker, more work is necessary before welding. It was also demonstrated that the seam tracker can be further used to align the beam/gun to the joint and assess variations in a gap in the joint or a variation of working distance for further process reliability.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Electron beam welding; Electron optics; Reliability; Multimode |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Advanced Manufacturing Institute (Sheffield) > Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Mar 2024 16:24 |
Last Modified: | 25 Mar 2024 16:24 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s40194-023-01646-9 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:210877 |