【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】2022–2025: China’s first nine-axis, all-position intelligent welding robot put into use!
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Let’s give praise and support to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Progress in Chemical Engineering Equipment】A continuously updated summary post is available – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html *****************On May 6th, Sinopec’s Tenth Construction Company held a launch event for the nine-axis fully automatic intelligent welding robots, which were then put into use. This marks the first time that intelligent welding robots have been used in the history of Sinopec’s engineering construction, filling a gap in this technological area within China’s petrochemical manufacturing and installation industry and enabling a transition in pipeline welding technology from automation to intelligence. Building on a solid foundation of cooperation between Shijian Company and Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and after going through eight stages of technical research and development trials, they successfully developed China’s first 9-axis full-position intelligent welding robot, which was used for the first time in the Yangzi Oil Refining Plant restructuring project. The application of nine-axis welding robots further expands the range of applications for pipeline prefabrication in factory settings. It enables automatic welding in the deep prefabrication process, shifting traditional pipeline construction from a \"2D\" approach to a \"3D\" one. This represents an further extension of the use of automatic welding in pipeline prefabrication, and it constitutes a small step forward toward more intelligent applications; it holds significant importance as a transition from \"0\" to \"1\". The successful development of the nine-axis system has enabled the accumulation of technical capabilities in areas such as visual recognition, reverse reconstruction, trajectory planning, software algorithms, and data application – all of which represent the forefront and key directions of the industry. It has laid a solid foundation for subsequent research and development efforts related to robots for welding the arc-shaped seams on equipment enclosures, robots for root welding, as well as the integration of positioners with N-axis robots. It has also provided ideas and directions for advancing mobile welding and automatic welding in the petrochemical engineering industry toward intelligent welding. The technical expertise developed during the research and development process will also contribute to the improvement of the construction methods used in petrochemical projects. Shi Jian Company will firmly pursue its development strategy of \"putting customers first, driving innovation, leveraging digital technologies, operating on an international scale, creating value, and strengthening the company through talent.\" Starting with the successful development and application of nine-axis fully automated intelligent welding robots, it will strive to create greater value, give back to its customers, and achieve common growth.
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The first domestic nine-axis fully positional intelligent welding robot, jointly developed by Shijian Company and Nanjing University of Science and Technology, was officially put into use on May 6, 2022. This marks the first time that intelligent welding robots have been used in the history of Sinopec’s engineering construction, filling a gap in this technological area within China’s petrochemical manufacturing and installation industry and enabling a transition in pipeline welding technology from automation to intelligence. The efficient on-site welding of complex pipelines for prefabrication is the core of pipeline construction, and intelligent welding robots possess unique advantages in the prefabrication of such pipelines. According to Wei Jiabin, a welding expert at Shijian Company and the person in charge of the research and development of 9-axis all-position welding robots, these intelligent robots feature an extremely long arm length of 6 meters, enabling precise control across multiple degrees of freedom. They boast advantages such as an adaptive trajectory planning system and the ability to learn autonomously, which allows them to handle the challenges posed by large, thick-walled pipelines with complex structures and limited on-site preparation space. By overcoming the limitation of existing industrial robots to perform only single-layer welding, these robots can carry out 360-degree rotational welding, thus offering greater versatility. Entering the intelligent construction facility of Shijian Company in Qingdao, in the nearly 1,000-square-meter pipe prefabrication workshop, the sound of regular welding could be heard; only two or three welders were walking around to check things out, which is a sharp contrast to the situation where dozens of people used to weld simultaneously. In this large workshop, silence has replaced noise, high efficiency has taken the place of intense effort, and intelligence has supplanted automation. The welding torches in the hands of welders now possess a sense of vitality, even the ability to think independently. “Now, one person can operate 4 robots simultaneously for welding, which saves 75% of the need for welders. The work efficiency is 3 to 4 times that of manual welding, and the welding quality is very stable. Moreover, no manual operation or monitoring is required during the welding process, which greatly reduces the labor intensity. ”said Liu Jianguo, chief technician at Shijian Company. At present, the nine-axis full-position intelligent welding robot has contributed to the refinery restructuring project at Yangzi Petrochemical and the liquefied gas safety improvement (maleic anhydride) project at Qingdao Petrochemical. It has completed a total of 20,856 inches worth of welding work, with a flaw detection success rate of 99.9%, generating construction output worth over 3 million yuan.