Induction Welding of Thermoplastics

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Universidad Pblica de Navarra

Escuela Tcnica Superior
de Ingenieros Industriales y de Telecomunicacin
Proyecto Fin de Carrera

Ingeniero Industrial
Induction Welding of Thermoplastics
Development of an experimental set-up
Autor:
Jos Manuel Ruiz

Tutor:
Javier Fauln
Carlos Berlanga
Pamplona, September 7, 2015

2

3
Ttulo:
Autor:
Tutor:
Departamento:
Induction Welding of Thermoplastics

Development of an experimental set-up
Jos Manuel Ruiz
Javier Fauln
Ingeniera Mecnica, Energtica y de Materiales
Miembros del tribunal

Presidente:
Vocal:
Secretario:
Fecha de Lectura:
Calificacin:
Resumen del proyecto

La soldadura por induccin es una tcnica de unin de materiales compuestos.
Para ello, se calentienta la interfaz mediante efecto Joule creado por unas corrientes
inducidas en el material tras la aplicacin de un campo magntico.
por induccin se lleva usando en metales desde los aos treinta.
El calentamiento
En los ochenta, se
comienza su desarrollo en la unin de materiales termoplsticos. Se ve un gran potencial

gracias a su rapidez de proceso y que no daa otras partes de la estructura. Adems,
es fcilmente automatizable y permite unir piezas de geometra compleja.
Este PFC
explora el proceso continuo de soldadura por induccin.

En primer lugar se dise y desarroll un equipo experimental con movimiento
automatizado de la pieza en el eje horizontal. La bobina, que crea el campo magntico
necesario, se sita en el eje vertical y permite ajsutar su altura con respecto a la pieza.
La pieza situada en una bandeja no metlica ir pasa por debajo de la bobina. La presin
necesaria para completar la soldadura se aplica mediante un bloque y unas abrazaderas.
Este bloque facilita la extraccin del calor innecesario generado en la pieza.
Por ltimo, una vez montada la mquina, se realizaron experimentos con el n de
optimizar el bloque, la bobina, la distancia y disposicin de la bobina frente a la pieza
y los valores de amperaje para el proceso. Sin embargo, la imposibilidad de monitorizar
el proceso correctamente no permiti un mayor desarrollo del equipo, y un anlisis ms
exhaustivo del proceso.

4
Abstract
Induction welding is a fusion joining technique of composite materials that heats
the interface by Joule eect created by currents induced in the material thanks to the
application of a magnetic eld. Induction heating is being used in metals since the 30s.
In the 80s their potential when joining thermoplastic materials was seen due to its high
process speed without causing damage to other parts of the structure. Moreover, the
process can be automatized allowing to join together structures with complex shapes.
This thesis explores the continuous induction welding process.
To do this, an experimental set-up was designed and developed with automated
movement in the horizontal axis.
placed.
In the vertical axis the workhead with the coil is
The coil creates the required magnetic eld, and is coupling distance to the
workpiecel can be adjusted. The workpiece is placed on a non-metallic trail that will
travel underneath the coil. The pressure needed to achieve a proper weld is applied with
a block on top of the laminates and toggle clampls. This block ease the heat transfer
from the workpiece.
Once the machine is built, experiments were carried out to optimize the block,
the coil, the distance and conguration between the coil and the workpiece, and the
amperage values for the process.
However, the great problems that appeared while
online monitoring the process, made imposible a further development of the set-up.
Realizacin del PFC

Este proyecto fue realizado en el grupo de investigacin "Structural Integrity and
Composites" de la Facultad Aeroespacial de TU Delft en calidad de investigador invitado,
y bajo la supervisin de la profesora Irene Fernndez Villegas. Debo dar las gracias tanto
a ella como al profesor Jos Manuel Torralba de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
por darme la oportunidad de ir all a trabajar sin ni siquiera conocerme.
El trabajo fue fundamentalmente prctico, muy centrado en el diseo del equipo y
sin mucha carga de investigacin. Estuve los dos primeros meses revisando intensamente
la literatura sobre el tema. Una vez terminada esta revisin, comenz la fase de diseo.
En esta fase tuve mucha ayuda tanto de Irene, como del tcnico de laboratorio Fred
Bosch. Tras un mes discutiendo el diseo, fue el momento de comprar todas las piezas
necesarias para su montaje, y de la manufactura de las piezas especiales diseadas. Esto
llev ms tiempo del esperado, alrededor de mes y medio, lo que supuso un retraso
considerable en el desarrollo del proyecto. Mientras esperaba a que llegara todo lo que
necesitaba, fui realizando los experimentos estticos y recopilando algo de informacion
y conocimiento sobre el proceso.
Cuando las piezas llegaron, comenc a montar el equipo.
En esta etapa recib
mucha ayuda de Martijn van Beuren, que estaba tambin realizando su proyecto de
master en mi laboratorio. Me gustara agradecerselo. Una vez la mquina estuvo montada, comenc los experimentos dinmicos. Esto di por concluido mi tiempo en Delft,
y no me di tiempo a llevar a cabo varias ideas y experimentos que tena planeados.

6
Me gustara agradecer a mis compaeros de ocina Mara, Leandro, Sebastin,

Tim, Raf, Dafne y Elsa todo su apoyo los buenos ratos que hemos pasado juntos.
Tambin quiero dar las gracias a mis padres y mi hermano, ya que sin ellos no
hubiera podido estar all.
Y a Mirentxu...
Contents
List of Figures
11
1 Introduction
17
1.1
Background
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
1.2
Thesis Objective
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
1.3
Thesis Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
I Literature Review
21
2 Joining Techniques
23
2.1
Mechanical Fastening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
23
2.2
Adhesive Bonding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
2.3
Fusion Bonding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
3 Induction Welding
33
3.1
Induction Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
33
3.2
Electromagnetic eects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
37
3.2.1
Skin eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
37
3.2.2
Edge eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
38

8
CONTENTS
3.2.3
Proximity eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
3.2.4
Ring eect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
3.3
Susceptors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40
3.4
Continuous Induction Welding process (CIW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
3.5
Online Monitoring Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
3.5.1
Resistance Welding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
3.5.2
Ultrasonic Welding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
45
3.5.3
Induction Welding
46
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
II Continuous Induction Welding Machine
47
4 Induction Heating System
51
4.1
Power Supply
4.1.1
4.2
Coil
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Work head (coil head)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
53
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
60
5 Design
5.1
51
61
Linear Motion System
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61
5.1.1
X axis
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
62
5.1.2
Z axis
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
64
5.2
Pressure Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
65
5.3
Final System
66
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III Continuous Induction Welding Experiments
73
6 Experimental procedure
77

CONTENTS
6.1
Process Online Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
77
6.2
Materials
78
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7 Static Experiments
7.1
79
Static conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 Dynamic Experiments
85
89
8.1
Dynamic set up congurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
89
8.2
Dynamic results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
94
8.2.1
First conguration
94
8.2.2
Second conguration: Coil's orientation inuence
8.2.3
Dynamic Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9 Overall conclusions
9.1
Future work and recommendations
. . . . . . . . . 100
103
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
A Calculations
107
A.1
Ball screw and stepper motor selection
A.2
Heat Sink Thickness Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

A.2.1
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Heat Transfer Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
B Budget
115
C Drawings
121
D Arduino code (controller)
131
Bibliography
133

10
CONTENTS
List of Figures
2.1
Mechanical joint congurations [35] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
24
2.2
Adhesive bond congurations [6] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
2.3
Healing of a polymer-polymer interface: (a) two distinct interfaces; (b)

achievement of intimate contact: and (c) collapse of the interface through
inter-diusion [14] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.4
27
Temperature behaviour of semi crystalline (left) and amorphous (right)
thermoplastic resins [
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29
2.5
Fusion bonding techniques [47] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
30
3.1
Calculation of magnetic eld due to a current carrying conductor [45]
. .
35
3.2
Edge eects resulting from changes in the work piece geometry [4]. . . . .
39
3.3
Eect of using a susceptor on the induced eddy currents [4].
40
3.4
Set up for the ICW of two composite laminates (left) and a simplied
. . . . . . .
temperature versus time prole on surface of the laminate (right) during

ICW [12, 27] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42
3.5
Top surface temperature evolution during CIW with are jet cooling [12] .
43
3.6
Displacement curve for resistance welding showing the ve sequential

stages (left) and displacement-based and LSS-based processing windows[30]. 44
3.7
Typical evolution of the dissipated power and the displacement of the

sonotrode [37] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
45

12
LIST OF FIGURES
3.8
Thermal image (left) and thermocouple measured temperature rates of

the process (right).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
46
4.1
EasyHeat power supply (left) and specications plate (right). . . . . . . .
53
4.2
Coil work head with(left) and without (right) attached coil. . . . . . . . .
54
4.3
RLC series circuit schematic [34]
55
4.4
Inductive and capacitive reactance (left) and Impedance (right) behaviours

with frequency [34]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
56
4.5
Equivalent circuit of an induction heating tank circuit [25]
. . . . . . . .
57
4.6
Denition of the quality factor "Q" [25] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
59
5.1
Ball screw and nut schematic [22] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
63
5.2
3D CAD models of the set up
67
5.3
Plain view of the height adjustment system (top) and the horizontal motion system (bottom).
5.4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
68
Tooling plate, 2Nm stepper motor, with NEMA 23motor mount, 5 mm

pitch ball screw, ball screw nut block bearing and the aluminium blocks .
69
5.5
Control case including the Arduino Uno, potentiometer and switch.
69
5.6
48V switching power supply and DM556 stepper motor driver (left) inside
the high power electronics case (right).
. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
5.7
Schematic of the electronic set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
70
5.8
Attached tray with the toggle clamps and nal system without the height
adjustment.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
7.1
TU Delft hairpin coil with ux concentrator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
7.2
TU Delft pancake coil (left) and previsible edge eect produced on the
overlap due to the oversized coil (right).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
80

LIST OF FIGURES
7.3
13
Images taken when statically heating during 20seconds (left) and 60 seconds (right) an overlap of 12,7mm with a pancake coil, 50A and a coupling
distance of 15mm. The pancake eye is centered on the overlap. . . . . . .
7.4
80
30seconds (left) and 60 seconds (right) static heating of a 12,7 mm ovelap

with a hair pin coil placed transversally. Using an amperage of 150A and
15 mm of coupling distance.
7.5
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Static heating of a 25,4mm overlap (left) and a 12,7mm overlap. Parameters: 100A, 10mm coupling distance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.6
. . . .
82
Temperature versus time thermocouple measures for a 25,4mm(top) and

a 12,4mm (bottom) overlap. Parameters: 100A, 10mm coupling distance.
7.8
82
Static thermocouple conguration for the 25,4mm overlap (left) and 12,7mm
overlap (right). All the thermocouples are placed in the bondline.
7.7
81
83
Maximum temperatures reached on the workpiece for diferent parameters

of amperage and coupling distance for a 25,4mm overlap (left) and a
12,7mm overlap (right). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.9
84
These charts display the amperage versus the temperature for each coupling distance value and overlap conguration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
84
7.10 These charts display the coupling distance versus the temperature for each
amperage value and overlap conguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
85
7.11 Two squetch of a coil proposal with 1 turn (left) and 2 turns (right), with
the 90 degree angle for the vertical placement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.1
Plan view (top) and cross section (bottom) of conguration 1. The red
dots (top) and orange squares (bottom) are thermocouples.
layer on the cross section (bottom) is the metal mesh.
The black
Thermocouples
are placed above the mesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8.2
86
90
Plan view (top) and cross section (bottom) of conguration 2. The red
dots (top) and orange squares (bottom) are thermocouples.
layer on the cross section (bottom) is the metal mesh.
The black
Thermocouples
are placed above the mesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
91

14
LIST OF FIGURES
8.3
Thermocouples wraped in kapton tape for insulation (left) and the longitudinal edge eect (red) and transversal less heating eect (blue) observed
in the rst dynamic trials (right)
8.4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Magnetic eld distribution over the overlap and the thermocouples with
conguration 1 (right) and conguration 2 (left). . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.5
. . . . .
93
Conguration 1 experimental set up with (left) and without(right) block.

The coil is centered on the overlap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.7
92
Conguration 2 experimental set up with (left) and without (right) block.

The coil is centered on the overlap as shown in the right image.
8.6
92
94
Temperature versus time charts of the rst conguration experiments with

block (left) and without block (right). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling
distance, 5mm/s.
8.8
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
95
Heating rates versus time plots of the rst conguration experiments with
block (top) and without block (bottom). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.9
96
TC6 heating rates versus time plot of the rst conguration experiments
(left) and temperature versus time plot of the TC3 and TC6 measures with
and wihout block. Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s. .
96
8.10 Temperature versus time plot with and without block; Parameters: 100A,
10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s (left), amperage inuence with an without block (right).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
97
8.11 Temperature versus time plot for each amperage value considered with
(left) and without (right) block.
10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s.
Parameters: 75A, 100A, 150A, 200A,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
97
8.12 Temperature versus time plot for each amperage value and a feed speed
of 5mm/s (left) and 10mm/s (right). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling
distance, 5 and 10mm/s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
98
8.13 TC4 (left) and TC6 (right) temperature versus amperage input plots for
the feed speeds of 5mm/s and 10mm/s . Parameters: 75A,100A, 150A,
200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5 and 10mm/s.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
98

LIST OF FIGURES
15
8.14 Temperature versus time graphs using a metal mesh (right) and without
metal mesh in the interface (left). The block is on top of the workpiece.
Parameters: 200A, 10mm of coupling distance, 5mm/sec. . . . . . . . . .
99
metal mesh in the interface (left). The block is not used on the top of the
workpiece. Parameters: 200A, 10mm of coupling distance, 5mm/sec. . . . 100
metal mesh in the interface (left). The block is not used on the top of the
workpiece. Parameters: 200A, 10mm of coupling distance, 5mm/sec. . . . 100
A.1
End Fixity Factor [36]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
A.2
Heat transfer problem with two dierent materials.
C.1
Drawing I: Tooling plate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
C.2
Drawing II: Epoxy/glassber moving trail.
C.3
Drawing III: Connecting block of the Hiwin carriage and the trail. . . . . 124
C.4
Drawing IV: Connecting block of the ballscrew nut and the trail. . . . . . 125
C.5
Drawing V: Base of the ballscrew bearing block. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
C.6
Drawing VI: Base of the ballscrew bearing block v2. . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
C.7
Drawing VII: Coil head base to be attached to the height adjustment
. . . . . . . . . . . . 112
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
C.8
Drawing VIII: Connecting block of the height adjustment system and the
coil head base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

16
LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background
Fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) are widely used in engineering applications. These
materials are increasingly replacing metals in designs due to their good properties. The
most remarkable are high specic stiness and strength, lightweight, corrosion resistance,
and excellent durability and fatigue resistance [35]. In high performance applications,
advanced composites matrix are used in combination with high performance reinforcing bres such as carbon, glass and aramid bres. Carbon bres are the most popular
reinforcements in aerospace applications due to their high stiness and strength versus
weight ratio.
Moreover, composites are classied based on the type of polymeric matrix as thermoset and thermoplastic. The main dierence between them is the creation of atomic
strength bonds in the thermoset molecular structure, called cross-links, when heated.
This is the main cause of the dierent behaviours and properties that both matrix types
have. Although an ideal structure would not have any joint points (as they are potentially failure points), most products and structures can't be manufactured or built in one
single piece. Therefore, there is a need of joining techniques that can provide outstanding
and strong joints between the dierent parts. Here is where thermoplastics resins have
a key value due to its capability to soften when heated and regain their properties when
cooled down.
This allows cost-eective manufacturing and joining techniques, always
keeping excellent mechanical properties.
17
Thesis Objective
18
Traditional joining methods like mechanical fastening and adhesive bonding have
several disadvantages [2], and fusion bonding has become an interesting way to join
thermoplastic composites and specially bre reinforced thermoplastic materials. Fusion
bonding or welding is based on the property of thermoplastic resins to ow when heated
above their glass transition temperature Tg (for amorphous polymers) or the crystalline
melting point Tm (for semi-crystalline polymers) and regain their mechanical properties
after cooling down [35].
The most promising and developed welding techniques for CFTP are ultrasonic,
resistance and induction welding.
In these techniques only the interface between the
adhered is melted, minimizing the impact on the rest of the structure.
Thus, they
permit large scale -short time welding with an on line monitoring of the process [2]. Our
interest relies on induction welding due to its good behaviour when joining long and
thin parts and the ability to easily automatize the process. These two characteristics
are mainly based on the non-contact requirements between the induction coil and the
parts to be joined, and the possibility to design the process to focus the heat on the
desired area of the structure.
This welding technique has been employed successfully in the aerospace industry
before.
In example, Fokker Aerostructures developed the Gulfstream G650 elevators
and rudder using this technique [15]. Even if the process has been studied and modelled
extensively in the past [12, 21, 28], further research is needed in order to allow on line
monitoring of the process.
1.2 Thesis Objective

The objective of this thesis is to develop a versatile lab-scale induction welding
setup. Once built, an experimental approach will show the heating rates and patterns
of the process. This would allow to further extrapolate the process to other materials,
geometries and feed speeds.
However, the main objective of this thesis is, paradoxically, out of the scope of it.
The goal is to start building foundations that will allow to design a model of the whole
process and to establish successful on line monitoring methods of it in the future.
Chapter 1. Introduction
19
1.3 Thesis Outline

The thesis starts with a literature review divided in three parts. First, a description
of FRTP fusion bonding will be carried out. Then, a review of the basics of induction
heating followed by an in situ monitoring methods summary will validate the further design decisions. Following the literature review the design of the set-up and a description
of the experimental approach will be explained. Then , the summary and discussion of
the results sections and, nally, conclusions and recommendations of the thesis.

20
Thesis Outline
Part I
Literature Review
21
Chapter 2
Joining Techniques
Structrure designs try to avoid joint points, as they are potentially failure points.
However, most products and structures can't be manufactured or built in one single
piece.
Thus, joining the dierent components and parts is necessary.
Joining parts
permit, besides achieving large and complex geometries, to optimize material utilization
and structural eciency and allows to create hybrid structures composed of dissimilar
materials [23]. Then, the performance of an structure is highly dependent on the quality
of joints. But each material has its own characteristics and behaviours, so what are the
correct techniques to use for thermoplastic composite joining?
When joining composites, one must deal with the matrix to obtain the desired
chemical, physical and mechanical compatibility between parts, while integrity of reinforcements must also prevail.
Most accepted and used techniques are mechanical
fastening, adhesive bonding and fusion bonding or welding. The three of them have its
own advantages and disadvantages when joining composite parts together. For thermoplastics, fusion bonding has raised popularity over the last decade but, why? A general
description of the three methods will help to understand.
2.1 Mechanical Fastening

Mechanical fastening is based only in mechanical forces to create a joint.
With
this technique materials remain separate and distinct at the atomic or molecular level.
Parts are held together by physical interlocking at a macroscopic or/and microscopic
level [23] by a mechanical joining device such as bolts, rivets, screws, etc. In each joint,
23
Mechanical Fastening
24
the composite materials are brought together and a hole is created through them. Then
a joining device is placed through the hole and secured. Several congurations available
in order to avoid shear stresses at the joint (see Figure 2.1) [35].
Figure 2.1: Mechanical joint congurations [35]
This technique allows to join parts without changing the composition or structure of
the material and permits intentional disassembly without component damage [23]. This
permits to easily join both similar and dissimilar materials. Also, no surface treatment
is needed to apply this technique on the material [20]. However, it has several problems
when applied to composite structures [2]:
Introduce stress concentrations in the material,
possibility of bre damaging,
delamination during drilling,
dierent thermal expansion of fasteners relative to composite,
electrical continuity in composite and arcing between fasteners,
Chapter 2. Joining Techniques
water intrusion into the joint,
possible galvanic corrosion at fastened joints,
additional weight,
extensive time and labour requirements of hole drilling.
25
All these problems make other techniques more attractive when joining composite
structures.
2.2 Adhesive Bonding

Adhesive bonding is inherently preferable to mechanical fastening. It is based on
the formation of chemical bonds as a result of a chemical reaction created by a substance
placed between the adherend [23]. A continuous connection is created avoiding the large
stress concentrations created at each fastener hole in mechanical fastening [39]. Also,
In the market there's a great variety of adhesive bonding, which permits their use in
specic applications.
Adhesive bonding is widely used in aerospace and aeronautic applications due to
its good strength to weight ratio, design exibility and ease of fabrication. The chemical
composition and microstructure of the adherend is minimally altered and permits to
join dissimilar materials [23]. The bonds resulting with this technique are expected to
sustain static or cyclic loads for considerable periods of time without any adverse eect
on the load bearing capacity of the structure [6].
Figure 2.2: Adhesive bond congurations [6]
Fusion Bonding
26
The greatest shortcomings of using this technique with composite materials is

the need of a surface preparation treatment [2] and the susceptibility to degradation
by environmental factors such as extreme temperatures, moisture, attack by solvents,
ultraviolet radiation, fungus and vermin. Also as they produce permanent joints, the
inspection and repair of the joints is dicult [23].
Composites usually have very smooth, moulded surfaces composed mainly by the
polymer matrix material. There's a wide range of contaminants that can be found in
the substrate surfaces (silicons, uorocarbon, machine oils, ngerprints and components
of the composite that have migrated to the surface) [2].These contaminants form a weak
boundary layer in a bond, and must be removed. These also serve to improve wetting of
low energy surfaces, chemically modify the surface (introduction of polar groups and coupling agents), and increase the surface roughness to improve the mechanical interlocking
in the surface [2].
In TSC materials, the surface treatment requires little more than cleaning and
mechanical abrasion to ensure high bond strength[10]. However, in TPCs such as PEEK
and PPS, due to the low surface energies, the wetting of the surfaces by an adhesive it's
dicult [11]. Some treatments may cause delamination defects just below the surface or
damage to brittle bres. So the objective of surface treatment is to modify the surface
morphology of a thin surface layer without aecting the bulk properties [40].
Exten-
sive surface treatment and long curing times make adhesive bonding labour intensive.
Another critical factor in adhesive bonding treatments is the sensitivity to storage of
treated TPCs [11].
2.3 Fusion Bonding

Fusion bonding or welding provides the most permanent joint. It is based on the
natural tendency of atoms, ions or molecules to attract one another by physical forces
and create a bond between them [23]. Thus, usually none chemical reaction is present
in the process.
It requires a melting and cooling of the materials to be joined at the
interface [32]. Therefore, the property of thermoplastic matrices to ow when heated
above their glass transition temperature Tg (for amorphous polymers) or the crystalline
melting point Tm (for semi-crystalline polymers), and regain their mechanical properties
after cooling down it's perfect for welding [3, 35].
27
The steps the material needs to pass in order to reach a welded joint are:
Surface preparation (if necessary),
Heating the polymer at the interface to a viscous state,
Physically provoke the inter diusion of the polymer chains,
Cooling down the polymer for joint consolidation.
Therefore, a polymer-polymer interface healing process [2] occurs at the welding

interface in order to obtain a proper weld. This healing involves two similar pieces of
bulk polymer that are brought into contact at a temperature above the glass transition.
The interfaces will conform to each other to achieve intimate contact followed by intermolecular diusion and chain entanglement. Once this is nished both pieces are welded
[13].
Figure 2.3: Healing of a polymer-polymer interface: (a) two distinct interfaces; (b) achievement of
intimate contact: and (c) collapse of the interface through inter-diusion [14]
This healing of a polymer-polymer interface was also described by Wool et al.[42,

43] and DeGennes, as ve sequential stages: (i) surface rearrangement, (ii) surface approach, (iii) wetting, (iv) diusion, and (v) randomization.
In stages (i) and (ii) the
Fusion Bonding
28
two dierent faces still exist so the interface has no mechanical properties t (see Figure 2.3a). When two polymer interfaces are brought together, there are also asperity
peaks brought into contact. The number and size of these asperity peaks depend on the
surface roughness of the substrate.
When the wetting is completed, the intimate contact has been achieved (see Figure 2.3b). In order to understand how the asperity peaks are softened during welding
and they ow so as to ll the interstitial spaces, several intimate contact models have
been proposed by Dara et al., Lee, et al.[41], Grewell et al.
[14].
To achieve this in-
timate contact, a controlled amount of pressure and temperature has to be put onto
the laminates. The application of pressure over the joint interface usually starts at the
beginning of the heating stage, and it has two main objectives:
Avoid delamination and negative eects in the material due to the melting of the
matrix,
Permit an intimate contact between the two melted parts at the joint interface.
However, a high pressure resulted in a lower quality of weld.
This is due to an
increase in the squeeze-out of matrix at the weld and a compromise must be met between
a good intimate contact and polymer squeeze-out [3].
Once the asperities have been attened and the inhomogeneities at the interface
have disappeared, the molecular chains are free to move cross the interface in a process
of inter diusion or autohesion (see Figure 2.3c). Wood et al. [42] also proved that the
diusion of the polymer chains can be modelled with DeGennes's reptation theory. The
healing process avoids the presence of joint surfaces, and the capability to transfer loads
through the welded area is developed as the two materials join [47] . This is due to the
progressive increase of the mechanical strength at the polymer-polymer interface [17].
On the other hand, a sucient molten layer must be created in the interface while
heating.
The amorphous or semi-crystalline microstructure of thermoplastics play an
important role on welding. The dierent behaviours between both type of resins while
heated must be taken into account.
When an amorphous TP resin (such as PEI) is
heated above Tg they suer a drop in their viscosity and, in consequence, the uency
of the matrix increases as the temperature rises from Tg . In contrast, a semi crystalline
TP resin (PEEK or PPS) only suer an small drop in their viscosity when overpassing
29
the Tg , so the matrix only reaches its uent state above the crystalline melting point
Tm (when the crystalline groups melt) [
Figure
]. This is described in Figure 2.4 (right) and
2.4 (left). Therefore, it is a necessary condition that amorphous thermoplastics
are heated above their Tg in order to ow and be welded, while for semi-crystalline
thermoplastics their processing temperature has to be above Tm .
Figure 2.4: Temperature behaviour of semi crystalline (left) and amorphous (right) thermoplastic resins
[? ]
There are plenty of dierent fusion bonding techniques for thermoplastics in nowaday's market.
It is the way the joint interface is heated which makes the dierence
between these fusion bonding techniques [32]. The heating can be divided in three types
(see Figure 2.5). The electromagnetic methods use an electric current to heat the welding interface, the friction welding creates heat through friction indduced by a mechanical
force, and the thermal welding uses other ways to produce the heat at the interface apart
from vibration or electromagnetic forces.
Fusion Bonding
30
Figure 2.5: Fusion bonding techniques [47]
All these techniques are developed in order to obtain a wide range of methods
applicable to various joint congurations, adaptable to automation, capable of on-line
monitoring, and provide reproducible, strong, and reliable joints with minimum surface
preparation and cost [47]. They are usually applied to high performance TP with a bre
volume fraction over 50% and high processing temperature (>350 C).
From all these welding techniques, only a few of them are currently being used for
aerospace structural assembly. Fokker is being using resistance and ultrasonic welding
since 1995. Fokker aplies aswell the induction welding method to the elevator and rudder
of the Gulfstream G650 [15]. On the other hand, Airbus is using resistance and ultrasonic
welding methods for the Airbus A380 leading edges of the winds production [44]. A brief
explanation of these three methods follows:
Resistance welding: A conductive element is placed at the welding interface. When

the electric current ows through the element, Joule losses produce heat and the
interface melts. The conductive element must be compatible with the composite
as it will be embedded in the joined part.
Induction welding: A created alternating magnetic eld induces eddy current in

the parts to be joinded. The eddy currents generate Joule losses which create the
heat. Conductive loops must be present in the material to allow current ow. If
the material has no bers and the matrix is not conductive a conductive element

is placed at the interface.
31
This is also used when there are conductive loops as
heat is only needed at the interface.
Ultrasonic Welding: High-frequency vibrations are applied close to the bondline.

This makes the surfaces rub against each other very quickly and over a short
distance. In addition, viscoelastic movements create heat aswell. Both combined
produce lozalized heat at the interface.

32
Fusion Bonding
Chapter 3
Induction Welding
3.1 Induction Heating

The principle behind the process stands towards Maxwell's electromagnetic laws.
When an oscillating current is applied through an induction coil, a time-variable
magnetic eld is created (Ampere's law). The frequency of the created magnetic
eld is the same as the coil current. Now, if a magnetically susceptible and electrically conductive material is placed near the coil, the alternating magnetic eld
induces an alternating voltage in the work piece (Faraday's law). When closedloop conductive networks are present in the material, such as bers in TPCs, the
induced emf creates alternating eddy currents (or Foucault currents).
In each
conductive loop heating occurs whenever there is a voltage drop due to electrical
impedance. The resultant heating is volumetric in nature, with an internal heat
generation mechanism dependent on intrinsic properties of the composite. Descriptions and models of the bre heating (Joule loss) and junction heating mechanisms
can be found elsewhere [46].
The eddy currents created in the material ow in an opposite direction than the
coil current (Lenz's Law). Therefore, the magnetic eld created by these currents
opposes to the main one (created by the coil). The total magnetic eld is a result
of the sum of both elds. Also, eddy current density decreases exponentially with
depth. These are the causes why the heat generated weakens towards the centre
of the piece or skin eect. This eect is well used with metals [25].
Heating can also occur due to hysteresis magnetic loss. When a magnetic material
is exposed to the alternating magnetic eld, the magnetic dipoles of the material
33
Induction Heating
34
change its orientation to realign with the eld [3].
As the dipoles rotate, they
vibrate and energy is lost in the form of heat due to friction. This heating process
only occurs up to the point of the Curie temperature of the magnetic material;
the point at which the material becomes non-ferromagnetic. However, for a xed
frequency, the heat generated by magnetic hysteresis is much lower than through
eddy currents. The frequency needed to achieve a signicant hysteresis loss heating
is in the order of MHz, while only a kHz frequency is needed to reach the same
amount of Joule's heating. On the other hand, if a material doesn't bear magnetic
properties the hysteresis loss is not applicable.
In the welding application heat is only needed in the adherend interface. A susceptor is used to provide this selective heating, avoiding overheating in outer layers
of the workpiece. It also maintains the temperature within the processing window
of the composite.
The mechanism of induction heating can be described by three sucessive physical
phenomena:
1. Electromagnetic energy transfer from the induction coil to the workpiece and
creation of the eddy currents.
2. Electrical energy transformation (eddy currents) to heat by the Joule's eect.
3. Heat transfer by thermal conduction from the hot zones to the cold zones.
The phenomena transferring the energy from the induction coil to the work piece
is described by Biot-Savart's electromagnetic law,
I
B= o
4
1 ~
[dlx
r]
|~r| 2
(3.1)
where I is the coil current, dl a section of the coil length and r is the distance
between the coil and some point P. The unit vector
r =
~
r
.
|~
r|
As
B = oH ,
the
magnetic eld intensity can be written
I
H=
4
1 ~
[dl ~r]
|~r|2
(3.2)
Chapter 3. Induction Welding
35
Figure 3.1: Calculation of magnetic eld due to a current carrying conductor [45]
Therefore, controlling the input current through the coil, the distance between
the coil and the workpiece and the coil geometry it is possible to control the
magnetic eld intensity applied to the workpiece. If the properties of the workpiece
material (magnetic, electric and thermal) are also known, one may think that the
temperature of the heated part is easy to control. However, there a large number
of other parameters aecting the induction heating such as:
Material and geometry of the inductor coil,
Air gap between the coil and the workpiece (coupling distance),
Relative position of the coil against the workpiece (coil-workpiece conguration).
Non-uniformities caused by the electromagnetic phenomena (skin eect, edge

eect).
On the other hand, the voltage induced
uind
in the work piece by the magnetic
eld B is dened as,
uind = B A = 2pf H A
(3.3)
Induction Heating
36
where f is the frequency and
the angular frequency of the magnetic eld,
is
the permeability of the work piece material, H the magnetic eld intensity and A
is the area enclosed by the conductive bre loop. If one wants to know what is the
inductive heat generation, the induced current dissipated as Joule losses by the
bres of the TPC is given by,
P = (u2ind )/Rf = (2pf H A)2 /Rf

where
Rf
(3.4)
is the electrical resistance of the bres. Hence, the inductive heat gen-
eration is proportional to the squared frequency. So, a higher frequency leads to

more power in the work piece and to a faster heating.
This means that when
the coupling distance rises (and the magnetic eld intensity drops), the drop in
generated power can be compensated by a rise in frequency.
However, the fre-
quency can't be raised unlimitedly. The skin eect, that will later be discussed,
it's a factor strongly aected by the frequency. Also the eciency of the induction
generators drops as frequency rises [8], and the maximum eciency of the coil lies
at its resonant frequency [4].
According to equation 3.2, only the Z component of the component of the generated magnetic eld is interesting because it's normal to the surface and it's the
component that causes heating (See Figure 3.1). The inuence of the coil geometry
in the magnetic eld intensity is present on the dl factor too. This behaviour can
be modelled as a transformer system but assuming that there is not a 100
The coil geometry also aects the shape of the heated area. The heating pattern
is a mirror image of the shape of the induction coil [27]. As explained before, the
heat production depends on the magnetic ux lines that induce the eddy currents.
The highest concentration of ux lines is inside the coil, so the maximum heating
rate is provided there [29]. Therefore, the coil's shape should be designed to focus
the heat on the desired welded zone [4].
The coil must be designed to prevent cancellation of the magnetic eld.
If the
opposites sides of the coil are too close to each other, no inductance is present on
it. A loop in the coil center will provide the inductance [29]. The magnetic eld is
asymmetric as at the coil junctions the eld is weaker. This eect is more apparent
in the single-turn coils [29]]. Attention must be taken when heating composites
due to the higher frequencies (MHz) to avoid overloading and arcing between the
coil and the work piece [33]. All these factors make the coil's design and geometry
37
absolutely critical in the process of induction heating and therefore, in induction

welding process. Usually, the coil geometry is designed to generate a magnetic ux
eld parallel to a plane of the susceptor.
3.2 Electromagnetic eects

Because of several electromagnetic phenomena, the current distribution within the
coil and the work piece is not uniform. This heat source non-uniformity causes a
non-uniform temperature prole in the work piece. The most important phenomena occurring are: skin eect, proximity eect, ring eect, and edge eect.
3.2.1 Skin eect

When the eddy currents are induced due to the inuence of the coil's alternating
magnetic eld, they produce secondary magnetic elds which oppose the primary
eld. This reduces the net magnetic ux, and causes a decrease in the current ow
as depth increases. Also, eddy currents near the surface can be viewed as shielding
the coil's magnetic eld, thereby weakening the magnetic eld at greater depths
and reducing induced currents [1, 25]. The distribution of current density along
the work piece thickness can be calculated by [25],
I = Io e(y/)
where
I[A/m2 ]
(3.5)
is the eddy current density at a distance y from the surface,
Io
is the eddy current density at the work piece surface, y is the distance from the
surface toward the core, and
is the penetration depth. The penetration depth
can be modelled as [4],
r
=
Where
and
r f
(3.6)
are the electrical resistivity and the magnetic permeability of
the work piece material respectively, and f the secondary eld frequency, which
is the same frequency as the primary magnetic eld [4, 27]. Looking at equation
equation 3.5, when
y=
the penetration depth is dened as the depth in which
the eddy current density has decreased 1/e, or 37% of the surface density [1, 4, 25].
Electromagnetic eects
38
At two standard depths of penetration (2 ), eddy current density has decreased

to 1/e squared or 13.5% of the surface density.
At three depths
(3),
the eddy
current density is down to only 5% of the surface density [1, 25].
If the penetration depth is greater compared to the thickness of the work piece,
the latter is considered to be an electromagnetically thin body. This, according
to equation 3.5, means that the current densities along the work piece are so
small that only a small amount of Joule eect would appear.
piece is transparent to the electromagnetic eld [25].
Therefore, the
The skin eect can cause
a temperature gradient over the work piece thickness if the penetration depth is
smaller than the work piece thickness.
Therefore, if the magnetic eld decrease
over the thickness is strong enough, this can cause also a temperature gradient
[27].
3.2.2 Edge eect
The edge eect results from a coil's proximity to the edge of the work piece.
Considering a circular pancake coil, the eddy currents loops induced in the work
piece are circular. If the work piece is larger than the coil's diameter, at the edge
and in the corners eddy currents have a large area to ow. So the current densities
in these regions are lower and less heat is generated. If the size of the work piece is
reduced, the currents are unable to follow the shape of the coil. In order to create
closed-loop paths, the eddy currents are then forced to travel along the edge of
the laminate in closest proximity of the coil. Higher current densities and higher
temperatures in these regions result (SeeFigure 18) [4].
39
Figure 3.2: Edge eects resulting from changes in the work piece geometry [4].
3.2.3 Proximity eect

When two current carrying conductors are placed near from each other, the current
density in both conductors will redistribute. If current in both conductors have
the same direction, they will concentrate in opposite sides of the conductor crosssection.
If currents have opposite directions, then they will concentrate in the
facing areas [25].

This phenomenon has a direct eect in the induction heating system. Two conductors are present: the induction coil and the work piece or susceptor. Eddy currents
induced in the work piece have a mirror image of the coil current, same shape but
opposite current direction (Faraday/Lenz law). This is a positive eect, as both
currents will be attracted to each other generating heat in the bond line.
3.2.4 Ring eect

This eect based on the proximity eect. In circular coils, two opposites current
ows are placed near each other, so magnetic ux will focus inside the ring. Therefore the intensity of the magnetic eld will be higher inside the ring. Outside the
ring, the magnetic ux lines will be disseminated. This permits to induce the eddy
currents in a specic area of the workpiece or susceptor.
Susceptors
40
3.3 Susceptors
As mentioned before, susceptors are used to provide this selective heating avoiding
overheating in outer layers of the workpiece.
It also maintains the temperature
within the processing window of the composite. As induction coils typically generate non-uniform magnetic elds, the maximum amount of heat is located nearby
the surface of the work piece. This is because the intensity of the magnetic eld,
and the intensity of the eddy currents, drop towards the centre. Also, non-uniform
heating patterns appear due to the electromagnetic phenomena explained before.
Therefore, it is dicult to obtain an adequate uniform heating in the welding bond
line between two ber reinforced resin matrix composites relying in the bers as
the only source of heating in the assembly.
Figure 3.3: Eect of using a susceptor on the induced eddy currents [4].
For the inner layers to be hot enough to melt the matrix resin, the outer layers
closer to the coil are too hot. This overheating results in porosity, delamination
and destruction of the resin.
To avoid this, a susceptor with a higher thermal
conductivity than the bers is placed in the bond line to rise the heating selectivity
when heating from one side [16]. This permits eddy currents to be induced in the
susceptor prior to the work pieces, and provide a selective heating of the bond line.
41
Susceptors can be embedded in matrix resin in order to have adequate resin ow
and consolidation, and to help lling voids in the weld zone [45]. Eddy currents are
induced in the susceptor and heat generated through Joule losses melts the resin.
This resin acts as a hot melt adhesive at the bond line between the parts [18].
Therefore, the prerequisites of a susceptor are to be susceptible to the eects of an
electromagnetic eld, to have enough electrical resistance to produce heat and form
a conductive closed-loop network [4]. To reach a faster heating, the density and
the heat capacity of the susceptor should be minimised. The thermal conductivity
of the susceptor is crucial to reach an homogeneous heating [9]. However, if the
mesh's density is two low, the resin ow across it can be poor, resulting in poor
bond strengths [45].
Magnetic permeability in susceptors must be high so it attracts the magnetic ux
lines. The ux lines should be oriented parallel to the plane of the susceptor. This
way, heat is focused in the welding bond line, and minimal heat is transferred to
the work pieces. Sometimes a ferrite material is placed in the bond line to achieve
more focus of the magnetic eld and eliminate magnetic ux eld leakage in the
work pieces [18].
In metal mesh susceptors, heat is generated in each mesh segment due to eddy
currents induced by the alternating magnetic eld.
The heat generation in the
metal mesh is also inuenced by the coupling distance between the coil and the
susceptor. As deduced by Biot-Savart's equation, the magnetic eld drops exponentially with the distance from the coil, resulting in a similar reduction in the
heat generated by the susceptor. However, due to the higher conductivity, metal
mesh susceptors need much smaller amounts of magnetic energy for heating than
bulk materials, so this problem can be overcome just by rising the input power or
the frequency [45].
Even if susceptors can help to avoid the problem of overheating the outer layers
of the work piece, the non-uniformity of the magnetic eld and, therefore the
non-uniformity of the heating patterns in the bond line are still present. In the
literature, several methods are present aiming more uniform heating patterns and
temperature proles by selectively cutting segments of the mesh [45] and using
a selvaged diamond shaped susceptor [16].
In summary, a susceptor has to be
designed according to the coil geometry, so the most eective and uniform heating
is achieved in the bond line.
Continuous Induction Welding process (CIW
42
3.4 Continuous Induction Welding process (CIW

Welding procedures can be classied as continuous (CIW), and discontinuous welding. Continuous welding applies a relative movement between the heating/consolidation unit and the work piece [8].
In discontinuous welding, no movement is
present between the heating/consolidation unit and the work piece.
Therefore,
CIW is a more complicated process than the discontinuous one because all the
factors aecting the heating and consolidation become more complicated.
Although, the discontinuous welding is of higher importance for mass production
application due to the lower cycle times, capability of welding complex and large
shapes. A common CIW setup is shown in Figure 3.4. In this setup, heating and
pressure devices are static while the work piece is placed below and moved on a
sliding carrier. No susceptor is used to heat the bondline. A temperature versus
time prole on the surface of the laminate is also shown.
Figure 3.4: Set up for the ICW of two composite laminates (left) and a simplied temperature versus
time prole on surface of the laminate (right) during ICW [12, 27]
As the work piece passes under the coil its temperature rises above to
Tmax
which
is lower than the melting temperature of the composite. Once this temperature is
reached the heating phase has ended.
The surface temperature slightly drops via air convection and conduction to surrounding materials until the rst pressure roller reaches the measurement point
Trc1 .
The work piece has now the heat and pressure conditions to start consoli-
dation (intimate contact and molecular inter diusion). Therefore,

lower than the glass transition temperature
Tg
Trc1
must be
of the material (if amorphous, if
43
it's semi crystalline the temperature requirements are already covered) to avoid
deformation of the surface top with the pressure.
Pressure applied in the roller
has to be optimized also to prevent squeeze out of the matrix [8, 12, 27].
Then , the material Is cooled down till
Trc2 by the pressure roller.
This temperature
has to be low enough to prevent delamination and deconsolidation of the laminate.

There's an inertial heating of the work piece below the melting temperature after
the roller passed. This is caused by the residual heat stored in the laminate. If
working with semi crystalline materials, the temperature reached here has to be
lower than the recrystallization temperature of the matrix material .
The work
piece should be held at the recrystallization temperature for a certain period of

time to complete the crystallization of the matrix material [27].
Recently, an improvement has been made by Moser who modied the set up in
Figure 3.4 by adding an air jet nozzle on the surface of the work piece while the
heating step of the process. Duhovic [12] modelled the impact of the air nozzle in
the temperature proles of the surface (see Figure 3.5). and in the bond line proles
.No major dierences were found in the bond line temperature levels but a great
decrease of the surface temperatures is achieved with the air nozzle.
Therefore,
the nozzle alters the through thickness heating gradient. This technique eliminates
the problem of overheating the top surface which leads to thermal degradation,
and also permits the use of higher generator powers and, thereby faster heating
times.
Figure 3.5: Top surface temperature evolution during CIW with are jet cooling [12]
Online Monitoring Techniques
44
3.5 Online Monitoring Techniques

For each of the techniques explained in the previous chapter, there are dierent
ways to dene the processing windows for each application. The most cost-eective
way to do it is by the means of online monitoring of the process.
As the main
parameter of the welding process is the temperature at the interface, the traditional
ways to mesure temperature (thermocouple mesures and infrared thermal camera
images) may appear as the most direct option for monitoring.
However, the chief role that heat transfer plays during welding makes the temperature a very sensitive parameter to factors like the geometry and nature of the
workpieces, and to the surrounding tooling[38]. Hence, these are not the best monitoring techniques for the welding application. An overview of the most succesfull
online monitoring techniques will be described in this chapter.
3.5.1 Resistance Welding
Figure 3.6: Displacement curve for resistance welding showing the ve sequential stages (left) and
displacement-based and LSS-based processing windows[30].
Usually the processing windows for resistance welding are dened using mechanical
testing of the weld. However, this implies a large number of tests and makes the
method costly and time-consuming. A new approach was made by Villegas [30]
using displacement data to characterize the quality of the weld.
This is posible
because of the relation between the reduction of the weld line thickness and the
lap shear strength of welded joints.
As the thickness of the weldline is dicult
to measure meanwhile the process is working, the vertical displacement of the
45
welding stack is measured.

time is shown in Figure
A common displacement curve versus the residence
3.6
This Figure 3.6(left) shows ve stages corresponding to ve physical phenomena
occuring at the welding interface during the welding. The processing windows is
stablished between the borders of the stage II. On the right image, the displacement
curve is plotted along with the lap shear strength. A good agreement can be seen
between both graphs, where the peak lap shear strength value is placed towards
the middle of the displacement graph. This allows to dene an optimun heating
time based on the displacement data in a very short time.
3.5.2 Ultrasonic Welding
Figure 3.7: Typical evolution of the dissipated power and the displacement of the sonotrode [37]
Online monitoring in ultrasonic welding is based in power-displacement curves.

Modern ultrasonic welders provide power, force and displacement data from the
process. Villegas [37] also showed in that the physical phenomena occuring during
the ultrasonic welding process can be described through the power-displacement
graphs.
This allows to relate the displacement-power data to the quality of the
welds, providing information to dene the processing parameters for a certain

material and welding conguration. Figure 3.7 shows the typical evolution of the
dissipated and displacement of the sonotrode during the vibration phase of the
process.
Online Monitoring Techniques
46
3.5.3 Induction Welding

In the literature, there is a lack of reliable monitoring methods for the induction
welding process. Most of the researchers use the temperature distribution at the
interface to control the process parameters (input current and coupling distance)[7,
26, 27].
Most of them use thermocouples and infrared cameras to record the
thermal information about the process.
However, due to the non uniformities
of the created magnetic elds and several negative electromagnetic eects, this
monitoring method is not 100% reliable and useful. Thermocouples only allow to
measure single points of the bondline and with the infrared camera is not posible
to record images at the bondline. Hence, Further research has to be done in order
to nd models of the process that will enable better monitoring of it. Figure 3.8
shows common themperature distributions of the continuous induction welding
Temperature (C)
process.
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
15
20
Time (sec)
25
30
35
Figure 3.8: Thermal image (left) and thermocouple measured temperature rates of the process (right).
Part II
Continuous Induction Welding
Machine
47

49
In this part the design of the experimental set-up will be described. The set-up
is divided in three dierent functional blocks.
This ts the requirements of the
process explained in the literature review. The three blocks are:
1. Induction heating system,

2. two axes linear movement system,
3. Pressure application system.
These three blocks will be joined by an aluminium prole structure.
This Lego
system is a cheap way to easily build a structure, allowing further modications if

needed.
Moreover, due to the characteristics of the induction heating phenomena, special
attention has to be put on the materials used for the design. Non-metallic materials
must be used in parts placed near the coil and its magnetic eld to avoid heating.
For those parts that require to be metallic (such as the aluminium frame), enough
distance has to be put between the coil and the parts in order to avoid the magnetic
ux lines inuence.

50
Chapter 4
Induction Heating System
This chapter will explain briey how an induction heating system works. This is
important to understand what role plays the coil in the whole system, and what has
to be taken into consideration in its electrical and thermal design. The induction
heating system is composed by a power supply, a work head and an induction coil.
The power supply and the work head are not designed in this thesis. They were
provided by Ambrell previously, thus the set-up will be designed around these two
parts.
4.1 Power Supply

The power supply is the main component of the induction heating system. It is
the part which will provide enough energy to create the necessary heat for the
induction welding. The power supply used is an Ambrell Easyheat LI 8310 (see
Figure 4.1). This is a MOSFET powered solid state induction heating system that
converts three-phase line voltage into a 10 kW terminal power output over a range
of 150-400 kHz. The power output is controlled by the amperage delivered through
the coil, with a permanent maximum of 600 A and a 60 seconds maximum of 750 A.
Line voltage enters the system through an isolation transformer and is changed to
a DC voltage. The level of this DC voltage is adjusted through thyristor rectiers.
This ltered DC output is the input for the solid-state RF supply's power boards,
where the MOSFETs are placed . Table
power supply.
51
4.1 summarizes the specications of the
Power Supply
52
Table 4.1: EASYHeat 8310 LI specications
EASYHeat 8310
LI
Equipment output
Equipment input
Cooling water
RF Terminal power
10
kW
AC Line Power
12,4
kW
Frequency
150-400
kHz
RF Coil Current
600 (750)
A (A max)
AC Line Power
12,4
kVA
Frequency
50/60
Hz
AC Line Voltage
370-440
Vac, 3phase
Temperature
20-35
Flow (system minimum)
5,7
l/m
Pressure
2,8-5,5
bar
Ph
Conductivity
Less than 50000
Resistivity
Greater than 2000
S
Wcm
Solids
Less than 150
pps
Ph
The power supply is connected to a cooling unit that provides the whole induction system with a cooling water ow of 5,7 l/m.
the induction coil and the power supply.
temperature range of 20-35
This water ow refrigerates
The cooling water must remain in a
C in order to avoid condensation that may result in
nuisance problems or damage to the equipment. Also, attention must be paid on

the tubing connecting the cooling unit with the power supply. Tubes tting the
pressure requirements of 2,8-5,5 bar have to be placed in order to avoid damage.
Chapter 4. Induction Heating System
53
Figure 4.1: EasyHeat power supply (left) and specications plate (right).
4.1.1 Work head (coil head)
Whilst the power supply provides sucient energy to the induction system, the
work head delivers the energy to a remote series tank resonant circuit integrated
in it. This tank circuit is formed by an inductor (coil), a bank of capacitors and
a matching transformer. In order to understand the way power is drawn from the
power supply by the inductor to heat the work piece, it is important to study the
behaviour of a series RLC resonant circuit. This is also important when designing
a coil. The inductor or coil has to eciently heat the work piece material. This
means that the coil has to reach the heating goal while optimizing the power drawn
from the power supply.
Power Supply
54
Figure 4.2: Coil work head with(left) and without (right) attached coil.
What is a series RLC resonant circuit?
First of all, a RLC series circuit is
an electric second-order circuit that contains two energy storage reactive elements
(an inductor and a capacitor) and a pure energy dissipating element (resistor).
When connected to a sinusoidal AC circuit, a complex factor (phase) is introduced
to model the alternating behaviour of current and voltage. In a pure ohmic resistor
voltage and current waveforms are in phase with each other, while in a pure inductor the voltage leads the current 90 degrees, and in a pure capacitor the voltage
lags the current 90 degrees.
The way to represent this is by using the Reactance X. Reactance is the measure
in Ohms of the resistance to a change in current or voltage in an AC circuit, due
to the presence of a capacitor or an inductor. Thus, reactance can be capacitive or
inductive. The addition of both reactance and the pure resistance in an AC circuit
is called impedance Z. Table
Figure
4.2 summarizes the AC electric components and
4.3 shows the schematic of a RLC series circuit.
55
Table 4.2: AC electric components.
Resistor
Inductor
Capacitor
Resistance
(R)
Reactance
(X)
Impedance
(Z)
1
C
Z = R0
Z = jL =
L90
1
Z = j C
=
1
90
C
Figure 4.3: RLC series circuit schematic [34]
Solving the circuit in Figure
4.3,
q
Vs = IZ whereZ = (XL XC )2 + R2
(4.1)
From this expression is easy to see that whenever the inductive reactance equals
the capacitive reactance
(XL = XC )
the impedance is minimum and therefore the
current is maximum for a xed voltage. This state is called resonance (see Figure
4.4).
As reactance is a function of the frequency, a resonance frequency can be
dened:
fR =
2p LC
(4.2)
Power Supply
56
Figure 4.4: Inductive and capacitive reactance (left) and Impedance (right) behaviours with frequency
[34]
As current in resonance will be maximum (see Figure ?) the power absorbed by
the circuit must be also at its maximum as:
P ower = I 2 Z and at resonance P ower = I 2 R

Thus, at resonance all the power provided to the system it's being dissipated by
the resistor.
That is, all the power is active (kW) and the system works at its
maximum of eectiveness. No more power has to be drawn from the power supply
to compensate reactive losses to keep providing the same current to the inductor.
In this case, the tank circuit behaves as a current source while the voltage fed by
the power supply remains constant.
The quality power factor (Q) is a way to measure how the current in the tank
circuit behaves.
It can be seen as a ratio between the reactive and the active
power of the coil-work piece system [19]. It is also the ratio between the power
stored in the coil (inductive reactance) and the power dissipated by the resistance
of the tank circuit (coil's resistance).
As higher the Q factor, higher would be
the current owing through the circuit. Therefore, Q factor has to be limited. At
resonance, the voltage at the capacitors is Q times the input voltage. If the voltage
at the capacitor tank is very high, more capacitance has to be added and safety
and isolation becomes an issue.
Q=
2
Reactive power
XL Icoil
XL
=
=
}
2
Active power
RIcoil
R
(4.3)
57
What about induction heating systems?
This electric theory is applied to
the induction heating system in order to optimize the overall system performance
along with the design of the coil. The induction heating tank circuit involves a
deeper breakdown of its equivalent circuit, as shown in Figure 4.5
Figure 4.5: Equivalent circuit of an induction heating tank circuit [25]
In this circuit,
RCOIL is the resistance of the coil and RW ORKP IECE
is the resistance
of the work piece as reected in the coil circuit. This reected resistance is the
work piece resistance which, if placed in a series circuit with the induction coil,
would dissipate as much heat as all the eddy currents in the work piece [29]. Thus,
RW ORKP IECE
is a function of the geometry of the work piece. For a thin laminate
heated by a perpendicular magnetic eld (as in this case) the following expression
was suggested by [29] as an approximation:
RW ORKP IECE =
Where
w ,l, , and t
(2w + 2l)
t2
(4.4)
are the laminate width, inductor length, work piece resistivity
and laminate thickness.

In the circuit shown in Figure
4.5, the dissipated load power, or the power dissi-
pated by the eddy currents in the work piece (which are considered equal [29]) is
given by the formula:
P = I 2 (RCOIL + RW ORKP IECE )
(4.5)
Power Supply
58
where the output current I(current through the coil) is the output voltage of the
inverter divided by the circuit impedance:
I=
E
where Z = (RCOIL +RW ORKP I??CE )+j(XCOIL +XW ORKP IECE +XAIRGAP XC )
Z
(4.6)
This allows a coupling eciency to be calculated as the ratio of electrical energy

dissipated in the work piece by the eddy currents divided by the energy dissipated
by the coil and the work piece [29]:
2
IRW
RW ORKP IECE
ORKP IECE
=
2
2
IRW ORKP IECE + IRCOIL
RW ORKP IECE + RCOIL
(4.7)
The system operates at the peak of the resonant curve where, as mentioned before,
the active power generated is maximum, as the reactive part of the circuit is zero.
This frequency is dependent on the tank circuit conditions. Thus, a change of the
coil/work piece conguration will shift signicantly the operation frequency for a
xed amperage value.
From all the reactive components of equation
4.7 , the largest is XAIRGAP [25].
This reactance models the coupling distance between the coil and the work piece.
Therefore, it is has the highest inuence in the Q quality factor. Also the inductance of the coil has a big eect in the value of Q. Low coil and lead inductances
are required for an ecient induction heating system.
Therefore, in an induction heating system the quality factor "Q characterizes the
behaviour of the current through the coil, but also the behaviour of the inductorwork piece system.
In induction heating it is in best interest to have a high Q
factor because the current through the coil will be higher and so will be the heat
generated in the work piece. But in the other hand, the reactive part of the circuit
has to be lowered to achieve the best coupling between the coil and the work piece
(low XAIRGAP ), and to have the minimum power losses due to high inductances
(XAIRGAP , XCOIL ). In addition, as explained before, the Q factor has to be limited
in order to avoid high voltages at the capacitor bank. Therefore, a compromise
between these factors must be made when designing a coil for an application (see
Figure 4.6). Induction heating designers usually look for a Q factor between 3-15,
depending on the application [25].
59
Figure 4.6: Denition of the quality factor "Q" [25]
However, some exibility in the design is allowed thanks to the impedance matching
or tuning [25].
Capacitance can be added to tune the system to the resonance
frequency and the input voltage can be controlled by the transformer taps present
in the work head.
Once the tank circuit has been tuned to resonant-frequency, it is sensed and fed
back to the microprocessor allowing a series of MOSFETS to be driven at this
frequency. This allows the system to operate at the resonant frequency with every
coil/work piece geometry, or to give a warning when capacitance or transformer
tap adjustments are needed. The result of all this system is a precisely controlled
magnetic eld created by this resonant-series circuit around the work-piece. The
eectiveness to draw power from the power supply to achieve the heating task
depends on the coupling eciency of the coil due to its geometry and proximity
to the work piece.
Due to the need to keep low inductance values to maximize eciency, the coil
cannot be easily separated from the work head. A typical solution to this problem
are water cooled coaxial cables. This kind of cables are complex and expensive,
so the coil will be attached to the work head to avoid power losses due to high
inductance. Therefore, a suciently strong height adjustment system is needed in
order to vary the coupling distance and to hold up the 10kg weight of the work
head.
Coil
60
4.2 Coil
According to what is explained above, the design of an induction heating coil involves electric and the thermal requirements. The electric requirements (eciency
and impedance matching with the power supply) will be designed by the manufacturers of the coil. This thesis will only focus on the heating requirements. Some
experimental feedback is needed prior to have the rst guidelines for a design.
Chapter 5
Design
5.1 Linear Motion System

After explaining the induction heating system, another fundamental part of the
experimental set-up is the linear movement system. In order to develop a versatile
process with short time working cycles, and with the ability to weld pieces with
complex geometries and large lengths, motion has to be introduced in the set-up.
The two main options present in the literature and industry involve either moving
the work piece [21] or moving the coil. The latest design developed by IVW Gmbh
applies continuity with the help of a robotic work head [12]. Another option would
be the use of a linear system to achieve this movement. Since robotic work heads
are far away from the needs of an experimental set-up, a linear system will be used
to apply movement. Again, some choices have to be made.
Does the coil or the work piece have to be moved?
Moving the coil while
the work piece is clamped may give more freedom when complex welding shapes
have to be weld. However, this will require a complex motion system with automated movement in several axes. Aiming for an easy but ecient control of the
movement only the work piece will be translated, keeping the coil static. Assuming
that the work piece will be moved horizontally, only the X axis needs motion in
an automatic and continuous way. On the other hand, the coil workhead needs to
be moved up and down for height adjustment (Z axis); a simple linear movement
system controlled manually is enough for this purpose.
Then, this sytem must
permit to adjust the coupling distance betweend the coil and the workpiece. In
summary movement will be applied as follows:
61
62
Table 5.1: Linear movement axis requirements.

X axis
Requirements
Z axis
Continuity
and
Manual
au-
tomated
trol
conand
clamping
control.
Part moved
Work piece
Coil
work
head
5.1.1 X axis
This system will move a non-metallic trail with the workpiece placed and clamped
on top.
What parameters have to be taken into account?
Several ways to apply a
continuous linear movement are present in the industrial market. In order to decide
which one is the most suitable for this application, some process parameters have
to be studied:
1. Feed speed: It has a great inuence on the temperatures of the process. As

the feed speed rises, less heat is generated at the work piece for a xed power.
Since the better weld results are reached with low feed speeds, a feed of 8
mm/s is suggested as starting point [21]. Nevertheless, this speed should be
optimized for each application.
2. Load: The welding process involves a consolidation stage when pressure is
applied. As an average amount of pressure, 8 bar can be set . This means
that for a pressure application area of 25x15mm a force of at least 300N needs
to be applied. The weight of a platform has also to be considered, and safety
margins must be set. In addition, the system has to be capable to move the
load as smoothly and eectively as possible.
3. Travelling length: 750mm.
4. Positioning: Even though high precision positioning is not a requirement in
the process, a reasonable repeatability is needed.
Therefore, the following features are required in the system:
Chapter 5. Design
63
Capability to move a 1000N load smoothly and eectively,
high torque at slow feed speed,
reasonable repeatability and precision,
good response when starting, stopping and reversing,
sucient reliability,
availability of a wide range of rotational speeds,
easy and intuitive control of the system,
not expensive.
What system ts the best?
From the wide range of options available, the
combination of a stepper motor with a ball screw shaft seems to t all the requirements. A stepper motor is an electromechanical device which converts electrical
pulses into discrete mechanical movements.
The rotational speed of the motor
shaft is related to the frequency of the pulses and the length of rotation is related
to the number of input pulses applied [31]. A ball screw is a shaft that translates
rotational motion to linear motion. It is able to withstand high thrust loads with
minimum internal friction thanks to the steel ball provided between the screw shaft
and the nut, rolling on the grooves.
Figure 5.1: Ball screw and nut schematic [22]
Both together are able to smoothly and accurately move high loads with a minimum energy and high repeatability. They oer a great and versatile control of the
speed and positioning.
Therefore, this solution ts perfectly for the application
[22]. In addition, stepper motors and ball screws are widely used in CNC systems
where requirements are similar to the ones in this project. Some calculations need
64
to be carried out to properly dimension both elements for the application (see
Appendix A.1).
5.1.2 Z axis
This system will move the coil work head. Therefore, it will control the coupling
distance between the coil and the work piece.
What parameters have to be taken into account?

1. Load: The work head combined with the coil has a weight of 15kg. Applying
a safety margin, the system will need to bare a load of 30kg or 300N.
2. Traveling length:
The coupling distance needs to be varied in a range of
200mm, so a system with a 300 mm stroke will be selected.

3. Positioning: Even though high precision positioning is not a requirement in
the process, a reasonable repeatability is needed. The work head needs to be
clamped once the required position is reached.
Therefore, the following features are required in the system:
Capability to move a 300N load smoothly and eectively,
reasonable repeatability and precision,
sucient reliability,
easy and intuitive manual control of the system,
not expensive.
What system ts the best?
In the Z axis motion the speed, accuracy, precision
and rigidity are not as critical as in the horizontal axis. Then, a lead screw system
can be used. Lead screws are well used for vertical applications and can be selflocked. This is a perfect solution, as the main disadvantages of this system (less
eciency, higher friction and unsuitability for high speed applications) are not
important here.
Moreover, lead screws don't use ball bearings in the nut, thus
the nut is made of plastic and the screw thread is trapezoidal, meaning that is a
cheaper solution than the ball screws
Chapter 5. Design
65
5.2 Pressure Device
Pressure will be applied with a clamped block on the top of the work piece. This
block will also be used as a heat sink for the welding application. This means it has
to be made from an electrically non-conductor material, as the coil will be closely
coupled to it.
Experiments are needed prior to the design of this part.
Toggle
clamps of 1,8 kN force each will be used as clamping devices to apply pressure.
The number of clamps required depends on the pressure is needed to be applied
(see Equation
5.1).
P (P a) =
n of toggle clamps F orce(N )

Area(m2 )
(5.1)
If a 100x100mm clamping block is used to clamp the workpieces using four 1.8
kN toggle clamps, the pressure applied onto the workpiece is 72000Pa or 7,2bar.
This pressure is not far away from the process requirements (8bar). However, this
method to apply pressure is considered a starting point, because the preassure is
not applied as uniformly as it should. Toggle clamps are commonly used in manufacturing to stabilize and secure objects. Load cells can be used to measure the
amount of force applied by a toggle clamp to conrm that the clamp is operating
within specications.
However, further investment on the set-up will permit the use of a pneumatic
cylinder attached to a roller, reaching higher forces and allowing to apply the
pressure more uniformely on the laminates.
Final System
66
5.3 Final System
Prior to the purcharse of the parts, a 3D CAD design was made using Autodesk
Inventor 2015. In addition to the stepper motor and the ball screw, the following
elements are needed on the system (the electric parts are not included in the CAD
model):
Two HIWIN HGR15 prole rails,
Four HIWIN HGW15CC carriages,
Electrically non-conductor tray,
NEMA 23 motor mount,
One backlash free shaft couplers DCNC-D32-L32B06,35,
One 16mm diameter ball nut,
Two 16mm diameter bearing blocks,
Stepper motor Leadshine driver DM556,
48V and 400W power supply,
Arduino Uno controller
Chapter 5. Design
(a) 3D CAD view 1
(b) 3D CAD view 2

Figure 5.2: 3D CAD models of the set up
67
Final System
68
(a) Plain view(left) and cross view (right) of the heigh adjustment system
(b) Plain view of the horizontal motion system

Figure 5.3: Plain view of the height adjustment system (top) and the horizontal motion system (bottom).
In order to attach the HIWIN prole rails rmly and securely, a base aluminium
tooling plate was designed. Also, aluminium blocks were needed to level up the
height of the HIWIN carriages, nut and bearing blocks.
This was designed and
Chapter 5. Design
69
delivered to the faculty workshop for manufacturing. In Figure 5.4 the nal result
is shown.
Figure 5.4: Tooling plate, 2Nm stepper motor, with NEMA 23motor mount, 5 mm pitch ball screw,
ball screw nut block bearing and the aluminium blocks
The speed and direction of the stepper motor will be controlled by the means
of an Arduino Uno board, using a potentiometer and an On-On switch for each
case. The circuit schematic is shown at Figure
5.7. The power suppply and the
driver were selected in such a way the stepper motor requirements were met. The
circuit was designed according to the Leadshine DM566 driver specications. The
range of speeds is set through the driver and the Arduino software program (see
Appendix C). This range is set between 5mm/s and 25mm/s, as 8-10mm/s are seen
as optimum process speeds in literature [21]. Controls will be put into a handy
case, while the power supply and the driver will be encaged apart (see Figure 5.6).
Figure 5.5: Control case including the Arduino Uno, potentiometer and switch.
Final System
70
Figure 5.6: 48V switching power supply and DM556 stepper motor driver (left) inside the high power
electronics case (right).
Figure 5.7: Schematic of the electronic set-up

The tray will move the work piece beneath the coil, thus it needs to be made from
an electrically non-conductor material, such as a glass ber/epoxy composite. It
will be attached to the carriages and the ball nut. The toggle clamps will also be
attached to it, so several holes with helicoils are provided in the design for that
Chapter 5. Design
purpuse. Figure
71
5.8 shows the nished tray attached to the motion system with
the toggle clamping devices.
Figure 5.8: Attached tray with the toggle clamps and nal system without the height adjustment.

72
Final System
Part III
Continuous Induction Welding
Experiments
73

75
The main application for the designed induction welding set up is to weld two
thermoplastic CF-PPS samples continuously on an overlap of 12,7mm conforming
to ASTMD1002, the standard test method for Apparent Sherar Strength of SingleLap-Joint Adhesively bonded metal specimens by Tension Loading. The pressure
will be applied with a block on the top of the workpieces. This block will also act
as a heat sink for the heat generated at the surface of the top laminate (the one
closer to the coil), as high temperatures are only needed at the welding interface.
This heat sink block has to be designed. Ideally, the block has to be made of an
electrically non-conductor material to reach an optimun heat transfer. The material of the block is also important. A good block design would involve the block's
material too, trying to achieve and optimize these two conditions: electrically nonconductive and allowing good heat transfer. However, in our case the material was
already supplied (glass ber/epoxy). This material is electrically non-conductor
so at least ts one of the two conditions. In addition, even surfaces apparently at
and smooth have microscopic peaks and asperities. This means that when they are
brought into contact, the peaks will reach perfect contact, but dips won't. These
dips will create air gaps between the block and the workpiece. The air gaps will act
as an insulating layer on the contact interface, and will exert a thermal conctact
resistance reducing the heat transfer. Therefore, air gaps have to be minimized so
this thermal conctact resistance is minimized too. A way to do this is to apply
thermal grease prior to put in conctact both surfaces. Also, the shape of the block
has to facilitate this perfect contact.
The thickness of the block is related to the coupling distance between the coil and
the workpiece.
As a rule of thumb the coil has to be coupled as closer to the
work piece as possible to achieve the maximum energy transfer [29]. On the other
hand, the block has to be thick enough to sink the heat from the surface of the top
laminate. A compromise has to be taken between these two parameters. A heat
transfer problem will be solved (see Appendix A.2) to set the theoretical minimum
thickness for the block, while the preliminar static experiments will give an idea
of the inuence of the coupling distance on the heating rates. Therefore, they will
set a maximum thickness for the block.
Finally, the induction heating system is composed by a power supply, a work head
and an induction coil. The power supply and the work head were set as a starting
point for the application. Unfortunately, according to the knowledge on induction

76
coil design [29] the coil models available at the TU Delft don't suit properly our
welding conguration. However, this coils will be used in order to get a preliminar
idea of the process parameters and eects. This data will provide a foundation that
will permit to choose and optimize the best coil shape and size for our application.
Summarizing, the nal objectives of these preliminary experiments are:
To design the best coil/workpiece conguration in regard with the best heating rates and patterns created.
To design the heat sink block thickness.
Chapter 6
Experimental procedure
6.1 Process Online Monitoring

Temperatures will be measured with thermocouples at the welding interface, with
and without a heat sink block on top of the laminate overlap. This block is not
optimized yet and the static experiments will give a reasonable thickness for it, as
a starting point. The thermocouples used on the experiments are K-type thin wire
chromel-alumel thermocouples.
Previous research on the eect of the magnetic
eld on the thermocouples K-type involving the induction equipment used didn't
show any signicant inuence on the measures [5]. An infrared thermal camera will
be used to see the heating patterns on the top laminate when the sink block is not
used. The infrared camera is a Cedip Infrared Systems Titanium Series thermal
imagen camera. The camera was set up to take images of separate temperature
ranges depending on the amperage values used on the experiment.
Temperature measurements with thermocouples are not a good monitoring method
for this process due to the non-uniformities of the heating patterns created. Thus,
comparisons between temperature measurements at the interface for dierent coilworpiece congurations are not reliable. This evidences the need of good monitoring methods for this process. IR camera images will give an idea of the heating
patterns of these edge eects on the surface.
To show the heating rates and patterns the experiments will use a coil bigger than
the overlap, assuming that if the coil is small enough (it is placed far from the edges)
the edge eect is not present or is negligible. The edge eect is the overheating
of the workpiece at the edges by the unability of the current lines to ow (there's
77
Materials
78
no material to) causing a rise of the current density and therefore, increased Joule
heating, in those areas. If the coil is placed far enough from the edges the current
density induced in the workpiece drops quadratically as the distance to the coil
increases. Hence, the current density at the edges would be almost zero and the
edge eect negligible.
It is important to note that the maximum temperatures reached in the work piece
will be well below the melting point of the material. This way, the material will
keep its properties constant and the workpiece position will not vary, while the
other parameters (amperage, coupling distance, coil shape and coil orientation)
are changed. This wil allow a better repeatability of the experiments.
6.2 Materials
The material used in the experiments is a carbon-bre fabric reinforced polyphenylensulde(CF/PPS) (5 harness satin; thickness :1,9mm) provided by Ten Cate Advanced Composites. The material was provided as a prepeg. A prepreg lay-up of
2
580x580mm was cut and made prior to consolidation at a hot platen press. The
consolidation cycle for CF/PPS was 320 C for 20 minutes at 10 bar of pressure, at
a heating/cooling rate of 10 C/min. One panel was consolidated with a thickness

of 1,9mm.
The resulting composite plate is cut in 90x90mm samples.
A metal
mesh susceptor was used to provide a uniform selective heating distribution at the
interface. The mesh is made of Stainless steel AISI 304L (M24). This mesh has
the best behaviour when heating large mesh areas [24]. The denition parameters
are shown in Table
6.1.
Table 6.1: Description of the metal mesh.

Mesh Material
Stainless
steel
AISI 304L (M24)
Wire diame-
Open
gap
Thickness
ter (mm)
width (mm)
(mm)
0,200
0,858
0,400
Chapter 7
Static Experiments
Static experiments will give a preliminar idea of the process. The objective of this
experiments is to make a rst selection of the values of amperage and coupling
distance that will be used in the dynamic experiments, and to nd a reasonable
block thickness. They will also help to select the most suitable coil for the application considering that the coils available at the TU Delft are not optimized for
it. Here, the infrared camera will be used to know how is the heating pattern that
each coil creates on the work piece.
Figure 7.1: TU Delft hairpin coil with ux concentrator.
Since the heating pattern generated in the work piece is a mirror of the coil's shape
[29], we need a coil that ts the overlap or welding interface. The welding interface
is at and will be heated from one side. This means that the coil has to create a
magnetic ux that intersects the work piece uniformly at the whole welding area.
Pancake coils are generally utilized when it's necessary to heat from one side, which
is exactly the type of application considered in this thesis (see Figure 7.2, left).
79

80
Figure 7.2: TU Delft pancake coil (left) and previsible edge eect produced on the overlap due to the
oversized coil (right).
Unfortunately, the dimensions of the TU Delft's coil are bigger than the overlap
dimensions leading to electromagnetic eects, such as the edge eect, that have to
be taken into account. As mentioned, this eect produces non uniformities on the
heating patterns and should be avoided or diminished. As the welding interface is
rectangular, a pancake coil doesn't seem a good solution since the circular heating
pattern will lead to a great edge eect on the overlap edges while scanning (Figure 7.2, right). However, thermal images taken from a static experiment heating
with the pancake coil eye centered on the overlap (Figure 7.3) show that the heat
is mainly generated on the overlap (Figure 7.3, right). This suggests that a smaller
pancake coil (tting the dimensions of the overlap) would be a really good option
for the application, even though edge eect also occurs at the beginning of the
heating cycle (Figure 7.3, left).
Figure 7.3: Images taken when statically heating during 20seconds (left) and 60 seconds (right) an
overlap of 12,7mm with a pancake coil, 50A and a coupling distance of 15mm. The pancake eye is
centered on the overlap.
Chapter 7. Static Experiments
81
As the hairpin coil has a rectangular shape, it is believed that the magnetic ux
lines will t better on the overlap. But again, the TU Delft's coil dimensions are
too big for the overlap and the edge eect has to be taken into account too. In
Figure 7.4 the coil is placed transversally against the overlap. The left image shows
the beginning of the edge heating. The right image shows partly the static heating
pattern of the hair pin coil. It is important to keep in mind that with this type
of coil the orientation with regard the work piece has an important role on the
heating, as the magnetic ux lines are not disposed evenly as in the pancake coil
type. This will be studied in the dynamic experiments section.
Figure 7.4: 30seconds (left) and 60 seconds (right) static heating of a 12,7 mm ovelap with a hair pin
coil placed transversally. Using an amperage of 150A and 15 mm of coupling distance.
The number of turns of the coil is also an important factor to achieve a uniform
heating pattern [29].
In general, the larger number of turns, the most uniform
patterns and ecient heating.
Figure
7.3 (with 4 coil turns) shows a uniform
heating pattern at the overlap. In Figure 7.4, the pattern is hiden by the coil itself.
Luckily, while scanning heating patterns tend to be more uniform. The eciency
of the pancake coil is also higher than the hairpin's eciency. The temperature
increase created by the pancake coil is similar to the one created by the hairpin
coil(with 1 turn), but using three times less amperage (50A versus 150A).
On this thesis experiments, only the hairpin coil will be used. It is believed that
using a coil that ts the overlap rectangular shape could be a good solution to
reduce the edge eects on it.
However, heating the overlap with the eye of the
pancake coil centered on it seems to provide a more uniform heating pattern (Figure 7.3). This suggests that a coil shape mixing both types with its dimensions
tting the overlap could be the best option for this application. Further research

82
should be made on this in the future. In addition, a temperature gradient over the
laminate thickeness due to the skin eect (that is crucial in metal treatment [25]) is
not signicant when heating CFRT as their matrix is non-ferromagnetic and their
permeability
is equal to that of air [27].
A temperature gradient might appear if
the eld intensity decreases strong enough over the thickness. This eect will be
studied only for the hairpin coil but it is highly dependant on the coil-workpiece
conguration and should be studied if another coil is used.
Figure 7.5: Static heating of a 25,4mm overlap (left) and a 12,7mm overlap. Parameters: 100A, 10mm
coupling distance.
More static experiments where carried out with two dierent overlaps (12,7 and
25,4 mm) to record the maximum temperatures reached with dierent amperage
values and coupling distances between the coil and the workpiece. This will allow
to set good parameters of amperage, coupling distance and thus, block thickness
for the dynamic experiments. Figure 7.6 shows the congurations used on these
experiments, while Figure 7.5 shows the pattern created by the hairpin coil on the
two overlaps.
Figure 7.6: Static thermocouple conguration for the 25,4mm overlap (left) and 12,7mm overlap (right).
All the thermocouples are placed in the bondline.
83
Unfortunately, the hairpin coil hides partly the heating pattern recorded by the
IR camera, and the image in Figure 7.5 does not show any edge eect or non
uniformity on the heating patterns.
However, thermocouple measures shown in
Figure 7.7 (top) evidence an overheating on the edge of the overlap when comparing
the measures between TC2 (102) and TC4 (104).
30 C is seen.
A temperature gradient of
The dierence between TC3 (103) and TC1 (101) is related to a
slight misplacement of the thermpocouples, leading to non-symetric results. The

inexistance of a thermal gradient between the interface and the surface can be seen
comparing this graph with the thermal image in Figure 7.5(left). TC3 temperature
is around 160 C, which is the same temperature recorded in that area by the
infrared camera.. Hence, there is not a temperature gradient in that area. However,
Temperautre (C)
there is no information about the area just beneath the coil.

270
260
250
240
230
220
210
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
Temperature (C)
20
40
60
Time(sec)
80
100
120
260
250
240
230
220
210
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
103
102
20
40
60
Time (sec)
80
100
120
Figure 7.7: Temperature versus time thermocouple measures for a 25,4mm(top) and a 12,4mm (bottom)
overlap. Parameters: 100A, 10mm coupling distance.
In the chart of Figure 7.7 (bottom) the edge eect unfortunately was not measured.
However, it is believed that it also exists, as in the case of the 25,4mm
overlap. Here TC1 (101) and TC3 (103) measures are very close from each other

84
due to the symmetric magnetic eld created by the coil. As in Figure 7.7 (top),
TC2 (102) is higher than TC1 (101) and TC3 (103). As the interest lies on the
maximum temperatures reached for the dierent coupling distances, only TC4 (for
the 25,4mm overlap) and TC2 (for the 12,7mm overlap) measures will be considered to analysis. Figure 7.8 shows the dierent maximum temperatures for 4,10
and 15mm of coupling distance, and 50,70 and 100 Amperes of input current.
Max T 12,7mm overlap
15mm
10mm
4mm
50
75
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
Max T 25,4mm overlap

450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
15mm
10mm
4mm
100
50
75
Amperage (A)
100
Amperage (A)
Figure 7.8: Maximum temperatures reached on the workpiece for diferent parameters of amperage and
coupling distance for a 25,4mm overlap (left) and a 12,7mm overlap (right).
Amperage influence 12,7mm

600
y = 7,5152x - 159,89
500
y = 3,0943x - 53,926
15mm
10mm
4mm
y = 1,6221x - 26,981
20
40
60
80
100
120
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
Amperage influence 25,4mm

450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
y = 6,7255x - 119,62
400
15mm
300
10mm
200
y = 3,2061x - 68,906
4mm
100
y = 1,4252x - 27,072
0
0
20
Amperage (A)
40
60
80
100
120
Amperage (A)
Figure 7.9: These charts display the amperage versus the temperature for each coupling distance value
and overlap conguration.
Comparing both charts in Figure 7.8 one can see that the maximum temperatures
are very similar, even if no thermocouple was placed near the edge on the 12,7
mm overlap to record the edge eect (Figure 7.6).
This can be explained by
the reduction of the width of the overlap, leading to higher current density and
therefore, to a greater heat generation.
Therefore, when the overlap dimension
decreases the heating rates increase.

The amperage inuece is shown in Figure 7.9. The maximum temperatures (Figure 7.8) versus the amperage values of 50, 75 and 100 Amperes are graphed for
85
each coupling distance (4,10 and 15mm).
The trendlines included in the graph
show that temperature increases linearly with the amperage. This also shows that
the slope of the curve doubles its value for each 5mm decrease of coupling distance,
suggesting that the heating rate doubles its value when the coil and the workpiece
distance is reduced by 5mm.
Of course, this is only valid when using the hair-
pin coil. The inuence of the coupling distance on the heating rates is shown in
Figure 7.10. Here the maximum temperatures shown in Figure 7.8 are displayed
for each coupling distance (4,10 and 15mm). The trendlines included in the graph
show that temperature decreases quadraticaly with the coupling distance.
Coupling distance influence 25,4mm

700
y=
3,1617x2
Coupling distance influence (12,7mm)

700
- 102,25x + 958,41
y = 2,7198x2 - 95,756x + 939,51
600
500
y = 1,8118x2 - 62,627x + 612,19
400
50 A
300
75A
200
100A
100
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
600
500
y = 1,8118x2 - 62,627x + 612,19
400
50 A
300
75A
200
100A
100
y = 1,024x2 - 34,085x + 335,83
y = 0,9151x2 - 32,827x + 330,39
0
0
10
15
20
Coupling distance (mm)
10
15
20
Coupling distance (mm)
Figure 7.10: These charts display the coupling distance versus the temperature for each amperage value
and overlap conguration
7.1 Static conclusions

With in regard of results shown in Figure 7.8, a coupling distance of 10 mm combined with amperage values between 75 and 100 Amperes provide a sucient heat
generation to melt the material in a static conguration. It has to be taken into
account that while scanning the workpiece won't be 60 seconds under the magnetic eld. Hence, higher amperage values would have to be used in the dynamic
experiments to reach the same temperatures. However, a 10mm coupling distance
is close enough to reach desirable temperatures, thus a block thickness of 10mm
is considered reasonable. This is thicker than the minimum thickness calculated
of 7,64mm (see Appendix A.2). The block that will be used in the dynamic experiments is not optimized yet. It is made of Techtron PPS, an electrically non
conductive material considered a good starting point.
Static conclusions
86
About the coil shape and size, the following statements can be made in regard
with the static experiments:
The pancake coil provides a uniform pattern on the overlap when its eye is
centered on it,
the pancake coil is more ecient than the hairpin coil (this is related to the
number of turns),
the hairpin coil also provides a suciently uniform heating pattern on the
overlap (less than the pancake),
the magnetic eld and therefore, the heating pattern created by the hairpin
coil is symmetric in its tranversal direction,
the edge eect is present with both coils, but is greater with the pancake coil.
there is not a temperature gradient between the welding interface and the
uppermost laminate surface. Therefore, there is a through the thicnkess heat
transfer in the laminate.
All toghether, this statements suggest that a good coil shape for this application
will mix both shapes, leading to a oval with turns inside as shown in Figure 7.11.
Due to the small dimension of the overlap (12,7 mm), two will be the maximum
number of turns allowable. It is not clear if the coil should be wider or narrower
that the overlap 12,7mm. The dynamic experiments section will try to solve this.
12,7mm
12,7mm
Figure 7.11: Two squetch of a coil proposal with 1 turn (left) and 2 turns (right), with the 90 degree
angle for the vertical placement.
In addition, the following statements regarding induction heating can be made:
The smaller the overlap, the higher the current density induced in it and
therefore, the higher heat generation,
87
the temperature increases linearly with the amperage values,
the heating rate is two times higher when the coupling distance is reduced by
5mm (with the haipin coil),
the themperature decreases quadratically with the coupling distance.

88
Static conclusions
Chapter 8
Dynamic Experiments
The dynamic experiments will explain further decisions concerning the coil-worpiece
conguration (coil wider or narrower than the overlap) and heat sink block design.
The inuence of the amperage, coupling distance, coil orientation,feed speed and
metal mesh on the heating rates and temperatures will be studied too.
To do
so, experiments will involve two coil-workpiece congurations. The hairpin static
experiments showed a considerably edge eect on the work piece (see Figure 7.7).
This eect it's inherent to the way heat is produced at the work piece and avoid
it completely is dicult. The aim of the dynamic experiments is to analyze these
two coil-work piece congurations, trying to reduce this eect as much as possible.
8.1 Dynamic set up congurations

As in the static experiments, only the hairpin coil (Figure 7.1) will be used on
the dynamic experiments. Temperatures will be measured with thermocouples Ktype. The IR camera will not be used. The thermocouples are placed as shown in
Figure 8.1; TC1, TC2,TC3 and TC4 are placed in the welding interface above the
metal mesh (black), while TC6 is placed above the top laminate to record the surface temperature. On the second conguration shown in Figure 8.2 thermocouples
are placed in the same position, only the hairpin coil changes its orientation.
The rst trials of the dynamic experiments showed that less heat was generated
on the borders while scanning the work piece (see Figure 8.3(right)). To record
this longitudinal less heating eect, thermocouples TC1-TC2 will be placed near
the transversal edges of the work piece, as it is shown in Figure 8.3(right). The
89
Dynamic set up congurations
90
type K thermocouples will be wrapped on a kapton tape to insulate them and to

prevent that they come into contact with the carbon bers once the thermoplastic
resin melts (see Figure 8.3 (left)). Figure 8.3(left) also shows that the samples are
placed with the bers in the same direction. This will avoid the inuence of the
ber orientation in the results.
Figure 8.1: Plan view (top) and cross section (bottom) of conguration 1. The red dots (top) and
orange squares (bottom) are thermocouples. The black layer on the cross section (bottom) is the metal
mesh. Thermocouples are placed above the mesh.
Chapter 8. Dynamic Experiments
91
30mm
14mm
HAIRPIN COIL
10mm
2,4
1,3
Figure 8.2: Plan view (top) and cross section (bottom) of conguration 2. The red dots (top) and
orange squares (bottom) are thermocouples. The black layer on the cross section (bottom) is the metal
mesh. Thermocouples are placed above the mesh.
On the rst conguration in Figure 8.1 the coil will scan the overlap transversally,
showing the eect of a coil bigger than the overlap. Then, the temperature measurements of each pair of thermocouples (TC1-TC2, TC3-TC4) will be compared.
The temperature dierence between them is associated to the edge eect.
The
second conguration will scan the overlap longitudinally (see Figure 8.5). Here,
Dynamic set up congurations
92
the measures cannot be compared because the magnetic eld that intersects with
the workpiece is not the same for all the workpiece lenght. As this is not obvious,
Figure 8.4 will help to explain this phenomenon.
Figure 8.3: Thermocouples wraped in kapton tape for insulation (left) and the longitudinal edge eect
(red) and transversal less heating eect (blue) observed in the rst dynamic trials (right)
Movement direction
Movement direction
6
6
3,4
2,4
1,2
1,3
Figure 8.4: Magnetic eld distribution over the overlap and the thermocouples with conguration 1
(right) and conguration 2 (left).
The main dierence between both congurations is how the created magnetic eld
intersects the overlap. Figure 8.4 displays the magnetic ux lines created by the
coil versus the positions of the thermocouples for each conguration. In the rst
conguration the coil is placed tranversaly to the overlap. Therefore, the magnetic
ux lines that intersect with the workpiece are created by the same segment of
the coil for all the process length. However, in conguration 2 the coil is placed
longitudinaly to the overlap. The workpiece is intersected by magnetic eld lines
93
created by dierent segments of the coil. In result, a great variability is expected

in the thermocouple measures due to the non uniformity of the created eld.
Figure 8.5: Conguration 2 experimental set up with (left) and without (right) block. The coil is
centered on the overlap as shown in the right image.
The experiments were realized as shown in Figure 8.6. As can be seen, the hairpin
coil is not optimized for the application. It is considerably bigger than the overlap.
Also, as mentioned, the new coil will need a 90 angle with respect the Z axis.
Hence, in Figure 8.6 the toggle clamps were placed as evenly as posible considering
this non-optimization of the coil. Applying the pressure uniformly is important,
as it will allow to reduce the conctact thermal resistance between the block and
the workpiece. This will avoid air gaps between them and therefore, will maximize
the heat transfer.
It is important that the maximum temperatures reached in
the work piece are well below the melting point of the material.
This way, the
material will maintain its properties constant and allow a better repeatability of
the experiments.
In the dynamic experiments the feed speed is introduced as a new parameter.
Literature sets 8mm/s as a reasonable processing speed for the application [21].
In the static experiments the workpiece was heated during 60 seconds, and with
amperage values between 75 and 100 Amperes temperatures around the melting
point of the material were reached.
around 140/textdegree C is desired.
In the dynamic case a goal temperature of
Dynamic results
94
Figure 8.6: Conguration 1 experimental set up with (left) and without(right) block. The coil is centered
on the overlap
The time that the 90x90mm workpiece is under the magnetic eld depends on the
feed speed. With a 5mm/s feed speed, the sanning will last 18 seconds. If the workpiece is divided in diferential segments, as the hairpin coil has a width of 25mm,
each diferential segment will be beneath the coil for
25mm/5mm/sec = 5sec.
Looking at the charts of the static experiments in Figure 7.7, applying 5 seconds
of magnetic eld through the workpiece generates around 100 C. Hence, with a
5mm/s feed speed, the amperage input has to be increased to reach the 140 C
goal. In the rst dynamic trials, only with 200A and 10 mm of coupling distance a
maximum temperature of around 140 C was hit. This suggests dierences in how
the magnetic ux lines aect the workpiece when heating statically or dinamically.
8.2 Dynamic results

8.2.1 First conguration
The heating rates values of the rst conguration experiments (this is with the coil
placed transversally to the overlap) with and without block are shown in Figure 8.7.
At rst sight, it is clear when the magnetic eld passed the thermocouple. It is easy
to see that the maximum temperature reached with the block (130 C) is lower than
the temperature reached without block (160 C). This suggests an eective heat
transfer from the workpiece to the block. Also the block reduces the temperature
95
dierence between each pair of thermocouples (TC3-TC4, TC1-TC2) when cooling.

The maximum surface temperature measured by TC6 is also reduced from being
equal to TC3 to the values of TC2 and TC1, which are considerably cooler. TC6
being equal to TC3 suggests the existance of a through the thickness heat transfer.
The heating rate of the top surface is also reduced by the eect of the block; the
slope of the curve is steeper without block than with block. This produces a delay
in TC6 increase of temperature when the block is on top. Measures of TC2 and
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
TC1 show the less heating eect at the longitudinal edges.
106
10
15
20
Time (sec)
25
30
35
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
Time (sec)
30
40
50
Figure 8.7: Temperature versus time charts of the rst conguration experiments with block (left) and
without block (right). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s.
If only at rst glance so much information can be extracted from the graphs, isolating selectively the curves would allow to extract even more information. Figure 8.8
plots the heating rate versus time for thermocouples TC2,TC4 and TC6 with and
without the block. The heating rate ( C/sec) increases its value with the residence
time.
The presence of the block lowers the heating rate values on the interface
(TC4 and TC2) around 1 C/sec, while the heating rate on the top surface (TC6)
is reduced considerably.
In addition, the workpiece cools down faster when the
block is used. The longitudinal edge eect doesn't aect the heating rates as TC2
and TC4 are very close from each other in both cases.
Dynamic results
4
TC2 With block
TC6 With block

2
TC4 With block
Heating rate (C/sec)
96
5
4
TC2 Without block
3
TC6 Without block
TC4 Without block
0
10
20
30
10
40
20
Time (sec)
30
40
50
Time (sec)
Figure 8.8: Heating rates versus time plots of the rst conguration experiments with block (top) and
without block (bottom). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s.
Heating rates of TC6 are also plotted in Figure 8.9, left. They are signicatively
lower when the block is used. In the right graph, measures of TC3 and TC6 are
compared with and without block.
It is clear that when the block is not used,
temperatures are higher and cooling is slower. In addition, there is no dierence

between temperature measures of TC3 and TC6. On the other hand, the temperatures are lower and the interface cools down faster (TC3 blue) when the block
is used. The delay in TC6 measures mentioned before also appears here. There
is a signicant decrease on the heating rate values when the block is used. This
suggests that the block introduces a higher thermal inertia, thus the system needs
more time to reach equilibrium. When the block is not used, TC6 needs 3 more
seconds than TC3 to start heating up but when he block is used, TC6 and TC3
start to heat at the same time. This is a weird behaviour as, with lower amperages
(see Figure 8.10, left), this delayed heating did not appear. It can be caused by a
misplacement of the thermocouples in this experiment.
160
140
120
100
TC6 With block
TC6 Without block
60
40
20
20
30
Time (sec)
40
TC6, 200A config 1

with block
80
10
TC3, 200A config 1

with block
TC3, 200A config 1

without block
TC6, 200A config 1
without block
50
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
Figure 8.9: TC6 heating rates versus time plot of the rst conguration experiments (left) and temperature versus time plot of the TC3 and TC6 measures with and wihout block. Parameters: 200A, 10mm
coupling distance, 5mm/s.
97
70
180
160
60
40
TC3 With block 100A
30
TC3 without block

100A
Temperature (C)
140
TC6 with block 100A
50
100
80
With block
60
Without block
40
20
TC6 Without block
100A
10
120
20
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
0
0
10
20
30
40
Amperage (A)
50
Figure 8.10: Temperature versus time plot with and without block; Parameters: 100A, 10mm coupling
distance, 5mm/s (left), amperage inuence with an without block (right).
Now, the inuence of the amperage and the feed speed will be analysed.
The
temperatures of TC4 will be used, as they have the maximum value. These temperatures measured by TC4 are plotted in Figure 8.10 (right) for each amperage
value of 75,100,150 and 200A. As in the static case, the temperature increases
linearly with the amperage value, and hits the higher values without the block.
In the right chart, the heating rates for each amperage value are plotted with the
block. Figure 8.11 shows the temperature distributions measure by TC4 for each
amperage value. The slope of the curve is steeper as the amperage input increases.
140
180
160
120
120
100
75A
80
100A
60
150A
40
200A
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
140
100
80
75A
60
100A
150A
40
200A
20
20
0
0
0
10
15
Time (sec)
20
25
30
10
15
20
25
Time (sec)
Figure 8.11: Temperature versus time plot for each amperage value considered with (left) and without
(right) block. Parameters: 75A, 100A, 150A, 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5mm/s.
The feed speed was only changed whithout the block.
Experiments used 5 and
10 mm/s for each amperage input of 75,100,150 and 200A. Figure 8.12 shows a
comparison of all the thermocouples measures with 5mm/s (left) and 10mm/s
(right).
From these charts, it can be concluded that increasing the feed speed
leads to lower heating rates and therefore, an average of 50 C less measured by the
thermocouples.
Dynamic results
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
Time (sec)
30
40
50
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
98
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
Time15(sec)
20
25
30
Figure 8.12: Temperature versus time plot for each amperage value and a feed speed of 5mm/s (left)
and 10mm/s (right). Parameters: 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5 and 10mm/s.
The following graphs in Figure 8.13 (left) show the TC4 temperature versus amperage input plot for each feed speed. The right gure plots the temperature versus
feed speed for each amperage input value. Comparing these two graphs with Figure 7.9, there is a similarity in how the coupling distance and the feed speed aect
the heating rates.
The temperature increases with the amperage input and, on
the other hand, decreases with the feed speed.
This temperature decrease with
the feed speed is similar to what happens with the coupling distance. The dierence is that the temperature decreases linearly with the feed speed, while with the
180
180
160
160
140
140
120
100
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
coupling distance decreases quadratically.
120
100
75A
80
100A
60
150A
40
40
200A
20
20
80
5mm/s
60
10mm/s
0
0
50
100
150
Amperage (A)
200
250
10
12
Feed speed (mm/sec)
Figure 8.13: TC4 (left) and TC6 (right) temperature versus amperage input plots for the feed speeds
of 5mm/s and 10mm/s . Parameters: 75A,100A, 150A, 200A, 10mm coupling distance, 5 and 10mm/s.
The last parameter under study is the inuence of the metal mesh on the heating
rates and patterns. For this purpose, the metal mesh was removed in two experiments, with and without block. The input amperage was set at 200A. The following
Figure 8.14 compares the heating rates obtained when heating with (right) and
without (left) metal mesh. In this gure, the block is on top of the workpiece. At
99
rst sight, is clear the uniformity that the metal mesh introduces in the temperature measures. The slope of the curves is softer when the mesh is used, and the
edge eect is negligible. However, when the mesh is not used, the slopes are steeper
and a signicant edge heating of 10 C appears (TC1-TC2, TC3-TC4). There is

also a big inuence of the mesh in the top surface heating rate (TC6). When the
mesh is not used, the curve of TC6 is more pronounced, reaching temperatures 10
C higher than when the mesh is used.
Therefore, the use of a metal mesh seems
to make the heating rates and patterns more uniform and consistent, preventing
from high temperature dierences between dierent points of the overlap.
140
130
101
120
110
102
103
90
80
104
70
106
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
10
20 Time (sec) 30
40
50
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
100
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
15
20
Time (sec)
25
30
35
Figure 8.14: Temperature versus time graphs using a metal mesh (right) and without metal mesh in the
interface (left). The block is on top of the workpiece. Parameters: 200A, 10mm of coupling distance,
5mm/sec.
When the block is not on the top (Figure 8.15), the heating rates are even less
uniform. As expected, the temperatures reached are higher than when the block
is used.
As the previous graphs, the slope of the curves are slightly softer with
the mesh (right). There is a great variability in these curves comparing with those
obtained when the mesh and the block were used (Figure 8.14, right). This shows
how important are the metal mesh and the block to mantain uniformity on the
heating patterns. They prevent from high temperature dierences between dierent points of the overlap, they soften the heating rates, and avoid high temperature
steps in short times.
Dynamic results
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
30
40
Time (sec)
50
60
Temperature (C)
Temperature (C)
100
70
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
Time (sec)
30
40
50
Figure 8.15: Temperature versus time graphs using a metal mesh (right) and without metal mesh in
the interface (left). The block is not used on the top of the workpiece. Parameters: 200A, 10mm of
coupling distance, 5mm/sec.
8.2.2 Second conguration: Coil's orientation inuence

With this conguration the coil is placed longitudinally to the overlap (see Figure 8.5). The magnetic ux lines will cut the workpiece in a non-symmetric way,
unlike they did with the coil placed transversally. This non-symmetry will lead to
weird heating patterns that can be interesting to study. As before, experiments
with and without block will be carried out, varying the amperage input values
from 75A ,100A ,150A and 200A. A rst overview of the results is shown in Figure 8.16. This results are very chaotic. Due to the non-symmetry of the magnec
eld in this orientation, there is a great variability and non-uniformity in the thermocouples measures.
The temperatures reached are higher than before as now
each diferential segment is heated during
55mm/5mm/sec = 11seconds.
This is
210
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
30
Time (sec)
40
50
Temperature C
Temperature C
twice the rst conguration heating time, and temperatures reach almost 200 C.
210
200
190
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
101
102
103
104
106
10
20
30
Time (sec)
40
50
Figure 8.16: Temperature versus time graphs using a metal mesh (right) and without metal mesh in
the interface (left). The block is not used on the top of the workpiece. Parameters: 200A, 10mm of
coupling distance, 5mm/sec.
101
In the left (with block), measures of TC1, TC2 and TC6 follow a similar pattern
than in conguration 1 (see Figure 8.7, left). However, there is a great temperature
dierence between TC3 (yellow) and TC4 (cyan).
This is not due to the edge
eect, as one may think. With this conguration TC3 is placed right below the
middle hairpin air gap, while TC4 is placed exaclty beneth the coil tube where
the magnec ux lines concentration is more intense. This is also why the slope of
TC3 curve is not as steep as the others. The slight higher slope at the beginning of
the yelow curve is due to the tip of the hairpin coil; just and only in that moment
TC3 is just below the coil tube for a few milliseconds.
This evidences that the
thermocouples measures are strongly inuenced by the coil position, and that a
slight misplacement of the coil or the thermocouples makes the measures chaotic
and very dicult to understand, as in the right graph (without block).
8.2.3 Dynamic Conclusions

The rst conguration places the coil transverally to the overlap.
In addition,
the size of the coil is considerable bigger than the overlap (54mm vs 12,7mm).
With this conguration, the results obtained when the block and the mesh are
used, are satisfactory (see Figure 8.7, left). The edge eect is zero when heating
and negligible (20 C) when cooling. The temperature on the surface is also highly
reduced (60 C) with the block on top.
Thus, the overlap is heated uniformly
without great temperature dierences, and the top surface temperatures are kept
low enough to prevent from melting.
All these results suggest that a coil slightly bigger than the overlap will work ne
on the application. Moreover, its reduced size will make it handier than the coil
used on these experiments. The only con is the longitudinal less heating eect is
negative, but it can be solving by slowing the scanning at those edges. Further
research has to be done on this.
Experiments also showed a great need of good monitoring methods for the process.
Most of the negative eects that appear in the workpiece, as well as the physics of
the heating, are due to the magnetic eld created by the coil. Therefore, if this eld
could be monitorized, the temperatures and the disturbing electromagnetic eects
could be measured.
This will lead to better knowledge of the process without
wondering about coil or thermocouple misplacement.
Dynamic results
102
The pressure applied onto the block is very important to have uniform heating
patterns and controlled heating rates. When the preassure is applied uniformly,
the contact thermal resistance decreases and the heat transfer improves. The block
surface has to be as smooth as possible too, and its form should be adapted to the
workpiece top surface. The application of thermal grease is recomended to improve
heat transfer, but further experiments should be done to prove this. As important
as the pressure block is the metal mesh. It was proved that the combination of
both the block and the mesh improved signicantly the heating patterns on the
overlap.
Chapter 9
Overall conclusions
The main objective and work of this PFC was directed into enabling future research
of the process of continuous induction welding. This has been done by designing
and building an experimental set-up, and by setting some foundations on the key
process parameters inuence.
The induction welding experimental set-up was designed with exibility in mind,
both in hardware and software terms. The desing keeps in mind the future introduction of new features in the machine. Moreover, it is adaptable to a wide range
of induction welding research, both static and continuous. The result has brought a
machine with two axes of movement with pressure applied with four 1,8kN clamps,
and capable to supply up to 700W of induction welding power. Once built, experiments were carried out to see the inuence of the dierent parameters of the
induction heating process in the welding conguration. The following conclusions
result from this research:
The coil needs to be sized and shaped according to the welding overlap width
and shape. Continuous experiments suggest that a coil slightly bigger than
the overlap width, with a shape mixing both a pancake and a hairpin coil,
are a good t for the 12,7mm welding overlap. The coil orientation has also
a great inuence if its shape is not symmetric. It should be oriented in such
a way that the magnetic ux lines attack evenly the overlap width.
Pressure needs to be applied uniformly.
The themperature measures were
more uniform in the interface when pressure was applied. On the other hand,
the temperature of the top laminate decreased when pressure was applied with
the block. This suggests that the contact thermal resistance will decrease even
103
104
more when pressure is applied in a more consistant way, i.e with a pneumatic
cylinder.
The common temperature monitoring methods (thermocouple measures and

IR images) are not the best match for this application. Thermocouple measures are highy dependent on their position versus the created magnetic ux
lines. This provides measures with non-uniformities and strange patterns if
the TC is misplaced. IR images give an idea of coil's heating pattern over
the surface of the top laminate, but none information of the welding interface
can be taken from them.
The most uniforme temperature graphs were obtained using the following
parameters: conguration 1, 200A, 10mm of coupling distances, 5mm/s of
feed speed and 7,2bar of pressure.
However, themperatures reached were
under the processing window requirements. Higher amperages are needed to
reach the processing 320 C.
The trail design does not allow to generate reproducible welds.
The trail
should be modied for an easier sample placement that will allow to reproduce
the sample positioning.
9.1 Future work and recommendations

The experiments had very promising results. The temperature measures obtained
during the dynamic experiments are very similar to those shown in the literature
review. However, further investment and work is needed on the machine, as its
goal is to made strong and reproducible welds.
Moreover, continuous welding has a lot of potential and possible applications. This
research focused in the joint of a simple geometry, as can be the joint between the
aircraft skin and stieners or rudders. However, much more complex geometries
could be welded if the appropiate tooling is incorporated to the current design.
The following design recommendations and improving points are made according
to the experience with the machine:
Most accurate themperature monitoring methods are needed. Finding a way

to accuratelly measure the magnetic eld created by the coil will made a great
improvement on the process monitoring as the power transmission and the
negative eects on the laminates are clearly dependent on it.
Chapter 9. Overall conclusions

105
A more uniform way to apply pressure with a data acquisition system is

needed in the machine design. Enough place has been left in the desing to
place a pneumatic cylinder next to the coil work head.
A new coil more suitable for the application has to be purchased. This thesis
suggests an eliptic coil with one or two turns, mixing both the pancake and
the hairpin shapes.
The trail should be modied to allow an easier sample placement that will
allowt to reproduce more accurately the sample positioning.
To conclude, the importance of having a validated model of the process should be

remarked. Induction welding is a process with a lot of parameters and variables.
Simply changing the coil or the welding conguration leads to a lot of time and
money in order to adapt the process and produce good welds again. The existance
of a validated model will mean a signicant reduction of time and cost and therefore, a great step for this technique into the aerostructrures joining marquet. In
addition, this will lead to more ecient and precise monitoring methods for the
process.

106
Appendix A
Calculations
A.1 Ball screw and stepper motor selection

Choosing the best combination of ball screw and stepper motor is an iterative
process. Some assumptions have to be made as a starting point. Considering our
application requirements we will start with the following design conditions:
Load: 1000N
Stroke (or travelling length) :750mm
Max feed speed: 20mm/s
Positioning accuracy:
Repeatability:
Service life: 25000 h (5 years)
Guide way (friction coecient) :
0,75/300mm
0,005mm
= 0, 004
Drive motor: Stepper motor (Nmax =1500rpm for 75VDC supply)
The following calculations and safety checks will be made:
1. Selection of the accuracy grade

2. Selection of the screw lead
3. Selection of the shaft diameter
107
108
4. Safety check
Allowable axial load
Permissible buckling load
Permissible rotational speed
5. Torque
Selection of the accuracy grade

and a repeatability of
Given a the accuracy grade of
0,75/300mm
0,005mm a ball screw with an accuracy grade C7 (0,50/300mm)
is enough. Therefore, no preload will be needed in the nut.
Selection of the screw lead
The lead of the ball screw is based on the maxi-
mum speed of the stepper motor and the maximum feed speed:
60s
20 mm
min
Vmax
s
=
= 0, 8 mm
Nmax
1500rpm
(A.1)
Thus, to achieve the speed requirements a screw pitch of at least 0,8mm is needed.
A standard lead for ball screws of 5mm is chosen.
Selection of the shaft diameter
The screw diameter has to be selected taking
into account the lead and the stroke.
A standard diameter of 16mm is chosen.
Further safety calculations will validate this choice.

A screw of 5mm lead, 16 mm shaft diameter and C7 grade of accuracy is chosen.
To drive the load, linear guideways are often used in combination with this motion
system. They oer outstanding positional accuracy with low frictional coecients
( =0,004) compared to the traditional slide.
Safety check
Allowable axial load
The system will only work at low speeds. Consequently,
it reaches low acceleration and deceleration values and the operating conditions
can follow a start-stop prole without risking damage to the system. A constant
speed assumption will be taken for the calculations.
Chapter A. Calculations
109
The axial load is:
Faxial = Fext + F
f riction
= Fext + Load
(A.2)
Fext is an external force modelling the friction introduced by the pressure device.
It is assumed that its value is 1000N.
Faxial = 1000N + 0, 004 1000N = 1004N
Permissible buckling load
(A.3)
Exceeding the recommended maximum compres-
sion force may result in buckling of the screw shaft. The maximum compression
load is calculated with an adaptation of Euler's buckling formula [36] .
Fmax =
where
dr
(S Cs 9, 687 104 d4r )

L2
(A.4)
is the root shaft diameter (mm), L is the maximum unsupported length,
S is a safety factor (0,8 maximum), and
Cs
is the end xity factor (see Figure
A.1).
Figure A.1: End Fixity Factor [36]
Considering a machined 750mm stroke, the shaft has a total length of 830mm (see
specication charts). The shaft will have one end xed and one end supported, so
the
Cs
values is 1,47. The root shaft diameter
dr
is 12,58mm.
Applying Euler's expression, the critical buckling force for this shaft with a safety
factor of 0,8 is 4200N. This value is lower than 1004N, so the chosen diameter is
valid.
110
Permissible rotational speed
The permissible rotational speed depends on
two factors: the critical screw speed and the critical nut speed.
The critical screw speed is related to the natural frequency of the screw shaft.
Exceeding this value may result in excessive vibration. The critical screw speed
can be obtained with this equation:
nC = CS 1, 2 108
where
nC
dr
L2
(A.5)
dr is the root shaft diameter, L is the length

and CS is the end xity factor (see Figure 6).
is the critical speed in rpm,
between bearing supports in mm,
As before, the shaft will have one end xed and one end supported, so the
value is 1,47. The root shaft diameter
dr
Cs
is 12,58 mm. However, L is now 750mm.
Applying the formula, the critical screw speed is 4000rpm. This is lower than the
1500rpm the stepper motor provides. Furthermore, control of the stepper motor
will assure this limit is not trespassed.
The critical nut speed is related to the velocity of the ball bearings rotating around
the screw shaft. Thomson recommends a maximum DN value of 140000, with
DN = do n
Where
do
(A.6)
is the nominal shaft diameter (16 mm) and n is the rotational speed of
the shaft (1500rpm). So DN value is 24000. It is acceptable.
Torque
Finally, the required torque for the stepper motor is:
T =
where
FAXIAL Lead
2
(A.7)
is the eciency, which for this ball screw and nut is 0,9.
The stepper motor has to provide a torque of at least 0,89Nm. Leaving a safety
margin, the stepper motor will have a holding torque of 2Nm.
111
A.2 Heat Sink Thickness Calculation
A.2.1 Heat Transfer Problem
The parameter that will dene the block is its thickness. A heat transfer problem
will be solved in order to calculate the minimum thickness required to sink the
necessary amount of heat from the work piece.
Once the minimum thickness
needed is known, experiments will try to set the best suitable coupling distance
for the coil. As the work piece is thin, the temperature gradient or through the
thickness heating can be neglected. The power supplied to the work piece in "s"
seconds is given by,
P (W ) =
Where
Cp
V Cp (TP rocess T )
s
(A.8)
is the work piece material density, V is the volume of the work piece,
the specic heat and
the room temperature. The material properties are
summarized in Table A.1. It has to be noted that this is not the total power that
the power supply is generating. Power losses by radiation and in the induction coil
have to be taken into account in order to calculate the total power supplied [29].
This power per unit of volume can be considered as a constant heat generation
3
(W/m ) in the CF/PPS material, in eects of the heat transfer problem. Hence,

g
W
m3

=
Cp (TP rocess T )
s
(A.9)
Heat Sink Thickness Calculation
112
Table A.1: Material properties of CF-PPS taken from [21]
Property
Abreviation Unit
Thermal conductivity CF-PPS
Specic weight
kA
kB
kAir
Cp
Convection coecient of air
Temperature
T
TB (x = L)
Tp rocess
Lz
Thermal conductivity Epoxy/glassber

Thermal conductivty air
Heat capacity
Temperature
Temperature
Dimension
Value
Wm K
W m1 K 1
W m1 K 1
Jkg 1 K 1
Kgm3
W m2 K 1
15
300
503
593
0,002
3
0,23
0,03
1000
1540
epoxy/gl
CF/PPS ass fiber
kB
kA
x=0
x=L
x=L+B
Figure A.2: Heat transfer problem with two dierent materials.

The problem can be dened as a steady one-dimensional heat transfer through a
plate made of two dierent materials, one of them generating heat (see Figure A.2).
These are the model hypothesis [9]:
Heat transfer is steady since there is no interest in the transitory behavior of

temperatures,
Heat transfer is one dimensional (T=T(y)),
113
The thermal conductivities are considered constant,
There is a perfect contact between the work piece and the block (In case of
imperfect contact, a thermal contact resistance would need to be considered
at the interface).
The heat transfer model is based on this equation,
d2 T
g
+ =0
2
dx
k
Where k is the thermal conductivity of the material and
(A.10)
is the heat generation.
Solving the dierential equation, the temperature distribution of each material is,
TA =
gx
2
+ C1 x + C2
2kA
TB = C3 x + C4
(A.11)
(A.12)
Two temperatures are known based on previous experiments ( Infrared camera

measures ):
T (x = L) = 230C
(A.13)
T (x = L + B) = 23C
(A.14)
The CF/PPS layer of material is considered isolated on the left side (x=0), so no
heat transfer occurs through that surface [9]:
dTA
)x=0 = 0
dx
(A.15)
The boundary conditions at the materials' interface are [9]:
1. Both bodies in contact must have the same temperature at the area of contact,
TA (x = L) = TB (x = L)
(A.16)
Heat Sink Thickness Calculation
114
2. The interface cannot store energy, thus the heat ux on the two sides of the
interface must be the same,
kA
Where
kA
and
kB
dT A (x = L)
dT B (x = L)
= kB
dx
dx
(A.17)
are the thermal conductivities of each material.
The heat generated in the CF/PPS layer goes away through convection on the
surface of the GF/epoxy layer,
gL
= h((TB )x=L+B T )
(A.18)
Solving the 4 equations/4 unknown factors problem,
C1 = 0
(A.19)
1 L+B
1
1
C2 = gL(
) gL
2(
+
)
h
kB
kB 2kA
(A.20)
C3 =
C4 =
gL
kB
(A.21)
gL
C3 (L + B)
h
(A.22)
Once the temperature distribution expression for each material is known it is posible to calculate the minimum thickness needed. Thanks to the infrared thermal
camera images recorded in the static experiments the temperature at the surface
of the top laminate is known (see Figure 7.4). This is
TB = 230C = 503K
with a
residence time of 60 seconds. Now, it is possible to nd a value for the thickness
of the block B. Therefore,
TB (x = L) =
gL
gL
L+
C3 (L + B)
kB
h
(A.23)
gL
kB
)( ) = 7, 64mm
h gL
(A.24)
and,
B = (503
This means that the block needs to be bigger than 7,64mm to reach the heat
transfer goal.
Appendix B
Budget
One of the main requirements of the design was to build the most ecient and
cost-eective setup possible.
Because of this, all the parts were purchased after
a deep research of retailers of equipment, trying to nd the best prices available.
The result is a 2,500 Euro setup, which is a fair price considering the research
oportunities that it will provide for the laboratory.
115
Ballscrew
set up
Horizontal System
Spindel
DCNC-Bearing Block for 16mm
16mm Variant 2 Nut pitch 5mm
Pitch 5,0mm price/m
16mm Ballscrews No End Machining
Boikon fastenings
40x40mm (price/m)
10
15
20
10
Flange nut M8
Flange nut M6
Bracket 40X40,basic
Bracket 40x80, basic
locking nut
Wrench for m10x0.75mm
DIN125A Ring
DIN125A Rings M10
M10X0,75mmlocking nut
16mm Ballnut Accesories
2 Sidedstandard
16mm CNC End Machining
Cutting Costs
15
T-bolt M6x15
0,83
10
T-bolt M8x15
10
Frame
Alluminium Boikon proles
Ud
Part/Component
7,99
78,99
95,98
0,00
0,00
52,28
2,00
69,99
377,21
1.606,44
111,60
87,30
3,20
4,80
1,80
2,70
35,20
39,60
198,90
Total (EUR)

116
Stepper
motor drivers
and control
HIWIN
railing system
output
Switching Powersupply 48V 8,3A DC
DM556 5,6A 50V Digital Driver
(IP54)
Stepper Motor DCNC-NEMA23-2Nm
HGW15CC
HIWIN Carriage HGW Flange type
(price/m) including green caps
HIWIN Prole Rails HG15R
(price/m) including green caps
HIWIN Prole Rails HG15R
DCNC-D32-L32-B8.00mm
HUB Shaft Coupler
A (high damping)
SPIDER DCNC-D32-L32 (A-Red) 98Sh
DCNC-D32-L32-6.35mm
HUB Shaft Coupler
NEMA 23 Motor Mounts L75MM
Cutting Costs
Bearing Block Retaining Ring
10x30x14,3 (Double row)
5200ZZ
Angular Contact Bearings
277,64
13,00
69,99
74,99
44,99
72,99
14,00
135,96
72,99
295,94
13,00
3,99
39,99
0,00
0,00
Chapter B. Budget
117
Tooling Plate
Enclosures
10% 1W 150ppm/C, Linear
Machining and drilling (hours)
(price/kg)
Material: Aluminium 1060
130 x 80 x 100mm
ABS Enclosure, IP67, Shielded,
400mm
CamRack 19in. cantilever tray,
366 x 600 x 560mm
19-Inch Cabinet, Wall Mount, 6U,
with a White Indicator, 6.35mm Shaft
RS Black 21mm Potentiometer Knob
Series
Mounting Plate For Use With MNX
5 corex0,75 mm2
Shielded control cable YSLYCY-JZ
with SD
14,96
77,12
99,95
15,99
152,54
1,18
1,63
247,43
7,76
4,16
22,58
25,51
8,84
18,82
1 115,94
Arduino Uno SMD Rev3

Arduino 1.77" SPI LCD Module
Arduino 178cm Yellow USB Cable
A, Panel Mount
SPDT Toggle Switch On-O-On, 6
10k
Series with a 6.35 mm Dia. Shaft
Vishay Cermet Potentiometer 149

118
Total Gross
18% VAT
Total Net
Height
Adjustment
Various
Connecting blocks
Trail
Material:
Connecting blocks
and Cursor,
with Hand wheel, Clamp
Stroke:300 mm,
Igus Drylin SET Easytube,
Machining and drilling
Aluminium 1060 (price/kg)
100
DIN912 (M4,M5,M6,M8)
30,00
9,60
283,51
323,11
18,69
7,20
20,00
45,89
6,40
30,00
36,40
200,00
9,99
209,99
EUR 2.128,45
EUR 383,12
EUR 2.511,57
30
DIN 84 M5x80
Shipping costs
10
(price/kg)
Material:Aluminium 1060
(price/kg)
Material: Epoxy/glassber
Chapter B. Budget
119

120
Appendix C
Drawings
List of Drawings
I
Tooling plate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
II
Epoxy/glassber moving trail. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
III
Connecting block of the Hiwin carriage and the trail.
IV
Connecting block of the ballscrew nut and the trail. . . . . . . . . . 125
Base of the ballscrew bearing block. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
VI
Base of the ballscrew bearing block v2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
VII
Coil head base to be attached to the height adjustment system.
. . . . . . . . 124
. . 128
VIII Connecting block of the height adjustment system and the coil head
base. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
121
Figure C.1: Drawing I: Tooling plate.
22,50 82,50
15,00
90,00
8,
20
120,00 7x
te 1
7x
4,2
0P
asa
n
60,00 17x
Pa
sa
n
te
17
x
te 00
san 6,
Pa 0 x
0
,2
0,0
n6 n1
jruizbalado
Diseo de
TU Delft
Revisado por
Aprobado por
1
2
Fecha
Tooling Plate
30/07/2015
Fecha
150,00
Edicin
Hoja
1/1

122
125,00
Figure C.2: Drawing II: Epoxy/glassber moving trail.
50.00 7x
25.00
78.50
M5x0.8 - 6H 32x
38.00
19.00
15.00
n6.60 THRU 4x
v n11.00 x 6.60
400.00
n5.50 THRU
16x
v n10.00 x 5.50
14.00
30.00
17/03/2015
TU Delft
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
SHEET
Epoxy/glassfiber moving trail
TITLE
1. All dimensions are in millimeters.

2. Tolerance:
X.XX==-0,02
3. Material: Epoxy/Glass fiber
Notes:
30.00
1 OF 1
REV
Chapter C. Drawings
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN

123
60.00
186.00
400.00
Figure C.3: Drawing III: Connecting block of the Hiwin carriage and the trail.
25.00
19.00
n5.50
1. All units are in millimeters

2. Tolerance
X.XX=+-0,02
3. Aluminium
Notes:
50.00
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN
02/04/2015
55.50
TU Delft
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
SHEET
1 OF 1
Hiwin carriage connector block Al
TITLE
REV

124
15.00
35.00
Figure C.4: Drawing IV: Connecting block of the ballscrew nut and the trail.
45.00
20.00
28.00
8.50
5.00
40.00
30.00
18-3-2015
TU Delft
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
SHEET
Connector block ballscrew nut
TITLE

2. Tolerance:
X.XX=+-0,02
4. Helicals in threads needed.
Notes:
1 OF 1
REV
Chapter C. Drawings
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN

125
Figure C.5: Drawing V: Base of the ballscrew bearing block.
40.00
n9.00 THRU
v n15.00 x 9.00
20.00
15.00
75.00
n9.00 THRU
v n15.00 x 9.00
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN
2-4-2015
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
Bearing block base
TITLE

2. Tolerance
X.XX=+-0,02
3. Material: Aluminium
Notes:
TU Delft
SHEET
1 OF 1
REV

126
Figure C.6: Drawing VI: Base of the ballscrew bearing block v2.
n9.00 THRU
v n15.00 x 9.00
60.00
5.00
75.00
40.00
20.00
n9.00 THRU
v n15.00 x 9.00
2-4-2015
TU Delft
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
Bearing block base motor
TITLE

2. Tolerance
X.XX=+-0,02
3. Material: Aluminium
Notes:
SHEET
1 OF 1
REV
Chapter C. Drawings
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN
15.00

127
Figure C.7: Drawing VII: Coil head base to be attached to the height adjustment system.
104.00
48.00
65.00
38.00
20.00
M5x0.8 - 6H x 10.00 4x
n6.60 THRU
v n11.00 x 6.60 4x
15.00
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN
8-4-2015
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
Coil head base
TITLE
TU Delft

2. Tolerance:
X.XX=+-0,02
Notes:
SHEET
1 OF 1
REV

128
152.00
20.00
143.00
20.00
4

2. Tolerance:
X.XX=+-0,02
3. Material:
Notes:
27.50
20.00
n5.50 THRU
8-4-2015
TU Delft
SCALE
SIZE
DWG NO
Coil head connector block
TITLE
20.00
Figure C.8: Drawing VIII: Connecting block of the height adjustment system and the coil head base.
1
SHEET
1 OF 1
REV
Chapter C. Drawings
APPROVED
MFG
QA
CHECKED
jruizbalado
DRAWN

129
25.00

130
Appendix D
Arduino code (controller)
1
3
/*
Stepper motor speed and d i r e c t i o n c o n t r o l . Speed i s c o n t r o l l e d by
the means o f a 10kOhm p o t e n t i o m e t e r and d i r e c t i o n i s c o n t r o l l e d by
the means o f a s wi tc h ONON
*/
5
7
9
11
void setup ( ) {
TCCR1A = 0 ;
TCCR1B = 0 ;
TCNT1 = 0 ;
TIMSK1 = 0 ; // u s i n g the i n t e r n a l c l o c k o f the arduino f o r speed
and d i r e c t i o n c o n t r o l a l l o w s to run m u l t i p l e o p e r a t i o n s meanwhile
//
TCCR1A |= ( 1 << COM1A0 ) | ( 1 << WGM11 ) | ( 1 << WGM10 ) ;
TCCR1B |= ( 1 << WGM13 ) | ( 1 << WGM12 ) ; // s e t s the timer / counter mode
o f o p e r a t i o n at FAST PWM ( mode 1 5 : check page 133 o f the data
s h e e t ) //
13
15
17
19
}
21
23
25
OCR1A = 65535 ; // s e t s the s i z e o f the r e g i s t e r 0CR1A//

pinMode ( 2 , INPUT_PULLUP) ; // s e t s swith onon p o s i t i o n //
pinMode ( 8 , OUTPUT) ; // s e t s d i r e c t i o n : from DM556 Dir to Arduino ' s
pin 8//
pinMode ( 9 , OUTPUT) ; // s e t s p u l s e r a t e : from DM556 Pul to Arduino '
s pin 9//
void loop ( ) {
i n t valSpeed = analogRead ( 3 ) ; // the p o t e n t i o m e t e r r e s i s t a n c e
analog value readed i s s t o r e d i n an i n t e g e r v a r i a b l e c a l l e d
valSpeed //
i n t c h o s e n D i r e c t i o n = d i g i t a l R e a d ( 2 ) ; // the d i g i t a l sw it c h value
readed i s s t o r e d i n an i n t e g e r v a r i a b l e c a l l e d c h o s e n D i r e c t i o n //
S e r i a l . begin ( 19200 ) ; // s t a r t s the s e r i a l monitor //
131

132
digitalWrite (8 , chosenDirection ) ;
27
S e r i a l . p r i n t ( " Foreward : " ) ;

Serial . print ( chosenDirection ) ;
S e r i a l . p r i n t ( " Speed : " ) ;
S e r i a l . p r i n t l n ( valSpeed * 25 / 1000 ) ;
29
31
33
35
37
39
41
43
45
i f ( valSpeed < 100 ) {

TCCR1B = 0 ; // i f the r e s i s t a n c e value i s under 100 b i t s , s t e p p e r
motor doesn ' t move//
} else {
OCR1A = 25000 / valSpeed ;
TCCR1B = ( 1 << WGM13 ) | ( 1 << WGM12 ) | ( 1 << CS11 ) | ( 1 << CS10 ) ; //
CS11<<1 and CS10<<1 s c a l e s the c l o c k speed o f 16MHz by 64 to >
250KHz ( check data sheet ' s page 134) //
}
delay ( 50 ) ; // the loop i s delayed 50ms u n t i l i t s t a r t s again //
//number o f s t e p s ( or p u l s e s ) per second= 250kHz /(2 *OCR1A) //

// i f d r i v e r i s s e t at 1000 s t e p s / rev the l o w e s t speed w i l l be 0 ,5 rev /
s e c and the h i g h e s t speed 5 rev / s e c //
// c o n s i d e r i n g a 5mm p i t c h b a l l screw (5mm/ rev ) the speeds w i l l be :
2 ,5mm/ s e c and 25mm/ s e c //
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