Page 23 - Welding Robots Technology, System Issues, and Applications

Introduction and Overview

automaton evidently had to have motive power, organs for locomotion,
directive organs, and one or more sensitive organs so adapted as to be 7
excited by external stimuli …”.

In the next two sub-sections a brief overview of the history of both welding and
robotics will be given.

1.2.1 Welding

Welding is also an ancient craft that combines art, science and human skill. It can
be traced back to around 3000 BC, with the Sumerians and the Egyptians. The
Sumerians used to made swords with parts joined by hard soldering. The Egyptians
found that after heating iron, it was much easier to work with, or apply “pressure”
welding or “solid-state” welding just by hammering the parts to join. These are the
first recorded welding procedures. Several objects were found in tombs,
excavations, etc., indicating the use of several welding techniques, like “pressure”
(hammering) welding, applied with several metal materials (gold, iron, bronze,
copper, etc.), in those ancient times.

In the sixteenth century these basic welding techniques were well known but not
used to any great extent. In 1540, the Italian Engineer Vannoccio Biringuccio
explains in his book “The Pirotechnia”, published in Venice [35], that welding
“seems to me an ingenious thing, little used, but of great usefulness”, and he
continues:

“the secret of welding a fracture of a saw, a sickle, or a sword, resides in
taking some low silver, borax or crushed glass and embracing the fracture
with a pair of hot tongs and closing so tight till the welding leans out and so
cools”

During these middle ages, the art of blacksmithing was further developed and it
was possible to produce many items of iron welded by hammering. It was not until
the nineteenth century that welding, as we know it today, was invented.

In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century several discovers in the field
of electricity and magnetism, but also in metallurgy, heat transfer and
thermodynamics, anticipated the amazing evolution done on welding during the
twentieth century. In 1800 Alessandro Volta finds a way to store energy in his
“voltaic cell” (battery), just by connecting two dissimilar metals using a moistened
substance. This was the first step to use electricity effectively. One year later, in
1801, the eminent English scientist Sir Humphrey Davy, demonstrated how to
generate an electric arc between two carbon electrodes. The same scientist
discovered magnesium and proved the existence of aluminum (finally discovered
in 1827 by Friederich Wöler), both in 1808. He also discovered acetylene in 1836.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the electric generator was invented and arc lighting
became popular. During the late 1800s, gas welding and cutting was developed.