Abstract Scope |
Introduction
Generation of quality welds requires detailed information on weld process parameters, equipment used, fixturing, material information, etc. The knowledge transfer of welding operations can be scarce as technology advances and older processes become less viable or skilled and knowledgeable workers leave. Therefore data management of welding and joining projects is necessary to acquire, store, protect, and share information for knowledge transfer. The Welding and Joining team at LANL has begun development of a welding and joining schema through GRANTA. GRANTA specifically manages materials information that is being used for additive manufacturing, test data management, restricted substances, simulation, and product engineering. In the case of welding and joining, all important variables and results can be recorded, such as information collected for equipment, process parameters, material, and weld results. Accumulation of data will help to predict weld parameters to achieve high quality welds, thus reducing time and effort for weld development.
Experimental Procedures
The Welding and Joining team collaborated with a team that already uses GRANTA to identify important variables, known as attributes, for each welding process used at Sigma. The attributes were then organized into categories via tables, such as welding, welding consumables, equipment, and material. The tables and attributes were laid out in a mock schema to help organize and visualize how the database would look and function. The organization of the tables and attributes to help ensure user-friendliness, as database organization can be a common pitfall that prevents downstream use. Once the attributes were organized, building the welding and joining schema took place on the development side of the GRANTA software using the Additive Manufacturing database as a template. The next step was to test and validate that the schema functions through data entry. Worksheets were created to integrate the change in data collection and management with the help and input from welders.
Results and Discussion
The welding and joining schema has the ability to capture important attributes for the various welding processes, materials, machine health, etc. Records from different tables can be linked so that all related information for a weld or project can be easily found. Definitions are applied to attributes to help standardize data collection amongst different users. This data is stored safely within GRANTA, limiting the number of users who can change records but granting many people the opportunity to view. Records can be shared with customers and other users outside of the organization. This enables collaborations across different sites and groups. Storing data within the schema also allows for ease of knowledge transfer by either sharing relevant records to customers or allowing read access to users. This schema can be used to predict weld behavior and help with parameter development through extrapolating weld parameters from data already input into the system. As information is collected, there is more data to pull from to help narrow down weld parameters thus reducing the amount of time and effort on development.
Conclusion
A welding and joining schema was successfully developed within the GRANTA database to help data management of weld information. This schema has standardized data collection, safely stores data, and helps with collaborations and knowledge transfer. Through data collection, this schema can be used to predict weld parameters and weld behavior.
Keywords: welding database, GRANTA, data management, data standardization, knowledge transfer
Acknowledgements
Development of the Welding and Joining Schema was a collaborative effort involving the welding team who helped recommend attributes namely Andrew Duffield, Mike Finch, Mike Strohmeyer, Stephen Wiest and Geoff Swank. We would like to specially thank Robin Pacheco, Jillian Adams, and Phil Schembri for their help in teaching us about the GRANTA and for their input in the new Welding and Joining Schema within the GRANTA database. |