This award provides funds to permit Dr. Bartholomew O. Nnaji, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, to pursue with Dr. Dong-Won Kim, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Chonbuk National University, Korea, for 24 months, a program of cooperative research to find efficient means for automating the arc welding process. Arc welding is an important and widespread fabrication process in industry. Arc welding of sheet metal, for example, has many applications in the fabrication of components used in the automotive and aerospace industries, home appliances, and housings in a variety of manufactured goods. During the welding process, however, noise, fumes, and intense heat and radiation make for an environment that is unpleasant and hazardous to human health. It has become imperative, therefore, to find efficient means for automating the arc welding process. The use of arc welding robots has the capacity not only to improve the human working environment, but also can save labor costs, increase weld quality, and increase weld consistency.
The collaborators in this project expect their research to result in the integration of off-line robot programming and welding operation planning to generate process plans for robotic arc welding automatically. A postdoctoral fellow will participate in this research. This project is relevant to the objectives of the U.S.-Korea Cooperative Science Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. and Korean scientists and engineers through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual benefit. Korean participation is supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF). ***
