Orbital-Based Automatic Multi-Layer Multi-Pass Welding Equipment for Small Assembly Plates

To address the technical challenges, production quality issues, and inefficiencies caused by the heavy reliance on traditional manual processing of small assembly plates in the shipbuilding industry, this paper presents the design and analysis of a track-based automatic welding device. This equipment provides a solution for achieving batch and continuous welding in the field of automatic welding technology. The design section includes the mechanical design of the equipment’s core mechanisms, the design of the operating systems, the development of visual scanning strategies under working conditions, and the formulation of multi-layer and multi-pass welding processes. The analysis section comprises the static analysis of the equipment’s mechanical structure, kinematic analysis of the robotic arm, and inspection analysis of the device. Compared with manual welding, multi-layer and multi-pass welding experiments conducted using the equipment demonstrated stabilized welding quality for small assembly plates. Under the conditions of single plates with different groove positions and gaps, when the gap was 4 mm, processing efficiency increased by 7.35%, and processing time was reduced by 10.2%; when the gap was 5 mm, processing efficiency increased by 10.7%, and processing time decreased by 7.39%. The welding formation rate for the overall processing of single plate panels and web grooves increased by 11.48%, total material consumption decreased by 13.4%, and unit material consumption decreased by 13.5%. For mass production of small assembly plates of the same specifications, processing time was reduced by 16.7%, and there was a 41.4% reduction in costs. The equipment effectively addresses the low level of automation and heavy dependence on traditional manual processing in the shipbuilding industry, contributing to cost reduction and efficiency improvement.