InfraStructures - June/July 2012 - Force Measurements on Welding Guns

Force Measurements on Welding Guns

Spot welding is the most important method in automotive manufacturing, where parts of the car body have to be joined. The quality of the welding spot depends on the current, the welding time, and the force of the welding gun, which presses the two parts together.

For reasons of quality assurance the welding guns have to be controlled regularly. The mobile test set from tecsis with measurement ranges of 1 kN, 10 kN or 20 kN, can be used to measure these electrode forces in spot-welding equipment. The set, which has a very robust design, consists of the force transducer and a display unit.

To check the forces acting between the electrodes, the force transducer is placed between the electrodes, where the concave force transfer surfaces center the force transducer. The value of the applied force can be read off on the display unit and can be transferred directly into the control. Tecsis offers also a stationary solution, where the force transducer is installed near the welding robot.

The test set uses the proven tecsis thin-film sensor, which are implanted in the force transducer. With this sensor an overall accuracy of 0.2 % can be reached in the mobile test set. The force transducer has an excellent long-term stability, is robust, and shows no creeping.

Source: tecsis GmbH