Advanced Fixtures and Machine Design

EWI's Design, Controls & Automation (DCA) team concentrates on automated system design, advanced fixturing, motion control, and control system programming. These capabilities have enabled a wide variety of projects, ranging from specialty fixtures for fatigue testing, to custom automated systems for welding or inspection.

A recent example is a project requiring a specialized fatigue testing fixture (Figure 1) due to the high temperature (~1000°C) the sample would be subjected to during testing. This presented an issue as the clamping portion would be weakened and fail at these elevated temperatures. The problem was solved by using high strength copper tensile clamps with liquid nitrogen cooling maintained at a low temperature at the tensile ends. The center of the sample received heating from a water cooled induction coil. FEA was performed on the fixture to ensure there were no failures from the fixture during testing.

As part of an EWI Cooperative Research Project focused on manufacturing precision fuel cell components quickly, the DCA team helped design and build a high speed laser welder (Figure 2) capable of very high velocity (2.5 m/s) while maintaining high accuracy. This laser system has received attention from industry for component assembly, as well as a spot on the local NBC news for the ingenuity it brings to the advanced energy market.

EWI’s flexibility and technical expertise combining welding know-how and design skill enables for a very wide variety of solutions for our customers. Involving EWI designers in your welding, automation, controls, or fixturing needs can lead to success with your applications.

For more information, please contact Alex Channell at achannel@ewi.org or call 614.688.5263, or Connie Reichert at creicher@ewi.org or call 614.688.5247.