Software System for Modeling Temperature Distribution During the Electron Beam Welding

Abstract

Now, electron beam welding (EBW) has become widespread in the manufacture of aerospace products. However, to achieve a stable quality of the weld and the required geometric dimensions, it is necessary to set the appropriate technological parameters, which causes difficulties when commissioning a new product from another alloy or purchasing welding equipment (in particular, an electron beam welding equipment; an electron beam gun with a different accelerating voltage from used). At the same time, there are the following most common technological problems that are encountered in the production of thin-walled structures for aerospace purposes: (1) root defects; (2) the absence of computational models of the EBW process. The authors of this work propose to develop a software system that will allow: (1) to simulate the process of electron beam welding for almost any products and alloys, which will make it possible to determine the optimal technological parameters and, therefore, prevent root defects; (2) to simplify the EBW modeling process, in comparison with such systems as MATLAB, ANSYS and Comsol, in which the EBW modeling process is complicated by the features of these programs, the requirements for knowledge of calculation models, the ability to program them and the creation of a product sketch in CAD systems. The software system proposed by the authors will make it possible to simplify the modeling process, reduce the time of modeling the EBW process, considering the thermophysical and geometric characteristics of the product, store both the results of the developed technological process and the simulation results. Thus, the software system developed by the authors for modeling the temperature distribution in the process of electron beam welding will prevent the technological problems encountered in production and obtain a stable quality of the weld in the process of electron beam welding.