Welding remains one of the most used joining techniques throughout all the industries today. Welding allows more flexibility to structural solutions and assembly designs, limited by conventional forming and other manufacturing options. The joining technique, however, does come with metallurgical and manufacturing challenges that has the potential to reduce product quality and increase material and labour costs.
Simufact Welding is a simulation solution for metal joining to predict and prevent stresses and distortions associated with welding processes. The simulation allows users to virtually verify different welding, clamping and cooling sequences, without interrupting production lines and consuming materials and labour. Additional insights is also provided like material phases, welding defects and heat affected zones.
Built on MSC Software’s powerful non-linear solver, MARC, Simufact Welding is a modern CAE tool for design departments, method planners and process developments. The intuitive GUI is a gateway for welding experts and development engineers to understand weld process better and to continuously improve production efficiency without, critically, in-depth FEA knowledge.
Simufact Welding reduce product time-to-market cycles and eliminate excessive production costs by accelerating process developments thanks to the following key factors:
- Identify distortions for assemblies, imbalances and clearances
- Explore clamping options and associated tools before any investments or purchases
- Investigate the impact of different weld sequences and directions
- Establish and optimize the relationships between unclamping and residual stresses
- Track the development of the heat affected zone
- Reduce unknowns and manufacturing risks during planning phases.
- Improve part and tool designs
- Verify part quality in terms of weld seams, metallurgical phases, hardness and effects of preheating
Simufact Material provides a wide range of weldable materials with different criteria and properties. The information includes several mechanical and metallurgical properties, dependent of temperature and material phase. Customized materials can also be added to the library.
Various other user-inputs are available for every aspect and step of the welding process. Ambient conditions and temperatures can be defined to represent real-life environments. Engineers and artisans can also adjust and experiment with trajectories and weld parameters such as the heat pool size, energy inputs, weld speeds and thermal cycles.
Simufact Welding is modular-based which allows for specific applications and welding techniques, while having the capability to transfer results and outputs from one process to another (even other Simufact products). Part and material history ensures the entire process is captured, bringing the simulation results as close to reality as possible. Welding modules includes arc welding, laser beam welding , electron beam welding, brazing, resistance spot welding as well as direct energy deposition (DED). The simulation technology can also be utilized for stress relieve and heat treatment cycles, as well as clamping and cooling or manufactured assemblies.
Simufact is a powerful tool to verify manufacturing techniques and to prevent defects and failures before it happens. Optimized production with higher quality and shorter lead-times increase new project feasibility studies and commercial competitiveness. It spearhead Hexagons Manufacturing Intelligence’s drive for smart factories for sustainable manufacturing and increased profitability.
