| 摘要 |
<p>A robotic welding method for making a heat exchanger having tubes 14 and inlet 22 and outlet 24 headers is disclosed. The headers 22;24 have planar tubesheets 40;41 and covers 30;32. The planar tubesheets 40;41 are welded to the inlet 18 and outlet 20 ends of tubes 14. The tubesheets 40;41 have two co-linear edge portions and a third edge intersecting a line through the two co-linear edge portions. The tubesheet 40;41 has interior edges defining holes through which the ends of tubes 14 extend. A robotic welding system 80 is provided, with a sensor 82, a welding apparatus 84 and a controller 86 for controlling the movement and operation of the welding apparatus 84. The tubesheet 40;41 is scanned to find the first and second co-linear edge portions, the third intersecting edge portion, and the face 60 of the tubesheet 40;41. An actual origin 89 is defined at the intersection of a first line through the first two co-linear edge portions found through scanning and a second line perpendicular to the line through the co-linear edge portions and extending through the third intersecting edge portion found through scanning and lying on the plane of the tubesheet face 60. The welding apparatus 84 is moved to weld the tubesheet 40;41 and tubes 14 together. The positions of the welds are based upon the location of the actual origin of the tubesheet 40;41 relative to the robotic system 80. After the tubesheet 40;41 has been welded to the tube ends 14, the cover 30;32 is welded to tubesheet 14. The robotic welding system 80 uses the same coordinate system that it has defined and performs additional scans of the cover 30;32 to determine two points on each of the side faces of the cover 30;32 and one point on each of the cover's end faces. The welding apparatus 84 then welds the cover 30;32 to the tubesheet 40;41 along the edges of the cover faces. <IMAGE></p> |
