Welding is a type of work with a harsh working environment, high labor intensity, and relatively high skill levels in the metal processing and installation industry. It is precise because of the particularity of this work that the new generation of young people is rarely willing to engage in this type of work. The shortage of welding skilled workers in various countries (especially economically developed countries) is becoming more and more serious, and the welding types in the metal processing and installation industry will face severe challenges. Will future pipeline welders be replaced by automatic welding equipment?
Although welding robots and various special automatic welding machines (especially pipeline automatic welding machines) have gradually reduced or replaced some welding workers, there are still quite a few welding scenes that have to rely on experienced welding workers for welding. Therefore, at present, it is not realistic for automatic welding equipment to completely replace welders. With the establishment of the national pipeline network company, China will usher in another peak period of pipeline construction, and the shortage of pipeline welding skills will be the bottleneck problem of pipeline construction in the future.
To solve the increasingly prominent shortage of welding skilled workers, it must be upgraded from two aspects: first, pipeline welding equipment needs to be fully intelligently upgraded; second, with the intelligent upgrade of pipeline welding equipment, the corresponding welding operations Personnel also need to be trained accordingly.
The future pipeline welding equipment should have automatic identification of welds and molten pools, automatic adjustment of the welding torch posture and trajectory in real-time, automatic adjustment of welding parameters, and the ability to adapt to harsh working environments and anti-interference. With the continuous development of digitization, intelligence, and automation technology, the continuous accumulation of welding big data, and the continuous progress of machine vision sensors and machine learning technology, the real intelligent automatic pipeline welding equipment will gradually become mature. At that time, it is only necessary to activate an operation button to complete the precise welding operation that currently requires highly skilled welders to complete, and realizes “one-button” intelligent welding of pipes. The working environment and labor intensity of pipeline welding “masters” will be greatly improved.
At the same time, the skill requirements of pipeline welding “masters” will also undergo major changes in the future of intelligent pipeline welding. They need to master the basic knowledge of the welding process, mechatronics, software programming of welding parameters, and intelligent automatic welding equipment for pipelines. The maintenance skills of the company have been improved from welding mainly based on operating experience and physical strength to commanding and operating intelligent pipeline automatic welding machines based on theoretical knowledge and skills.
Post time: Sep-15-2022