A gas, which flows between a welding device and work pieces while the work pieces are welded together, has large influence on the welding. A sensor device includes a sensor unit and a container that includes a housing case (i.e., housing portion) and a shielding member (i.e., shielding portion). The shielding member is attached to the housing case, and shields radiation heat directed toward the lower surface of the housing case among radiation heat generated while the work pieces W are welded together. The shielding member is inclined with respect to a flow direction of a gas passing through an outlet port for detection of a second gas flow channel so that the gas discharged from the outlet port for detection is blown to the shielding member and thus flows to a side opposite to the side where the work pieces W are to be welded together.

A gas, which flows between a welding device and work pieces while the work pieces are welded together, has large influence on the welding. A sensor device includes a sensor unit and a container that includes a housing case (i.e., housing portion) and a shielding member (i.e., shielding portion). The shielding member is attached to the housing case, and shields radiation heat directed toward the lower surface of the housing case among radiation heat generated while the work pieces W are welded together. The shielding member is inclined with respect to a flow direction of a gas passing through an outlet port for detection of a second gas flow channel so that the gas discharged from the outlet port for detection is blown to the shielding member and thus flows to a side opposite to the side where the work pieces W are to be welded together.

A method is specified for determining a size of a defect occurring in a surface region of a component while a surface modification process is performed on the surface region. The method includes identifying an occurrence of a defect occurring in a surface region of a component on a basis of a set of images and determining a size of the defect in a separate method step from the occurrence of the defect identified. In addition, an apparatus and a computer program are specified for determining a size of a defect occurring in a surface region of a component while a surface modification process is performed on the surface region.

A system and method of monitoring a powder-bed additive manufacturing process is provided where a layer of additive powder is fused using an energy source and electromagnetic emission signals are measured by a melt pool monitoring system to monitor the print process. The measured emission signals are analyzed to identify outlier emissions and clusters of outliers are identified by assessing the spatial proximity of the outlier emissions, e.g., using clustering algorithms, spatial control charts, etc. An alert may be provided or a process adjustment may be made when a cluster is identified or when a magnitude of a cluster exceeds a predetermined cluster threshold.

A method and a system for controlling a welding operation is provided by a welding machine controlled by an automatic motion generating mechanism. The method includes the steps of acquiring a set of welding data during the welding operation; computing at least a first part of the set of welding data and at least a second part of the set of welding data providing computed data, wherein the computed data indicate an abnormality; and transferring an abnormality output to a robot controller, which is controlling the welding machine and the automatic motion generating mechanism.

Disclosed is a machine learning device of a cutting condition adjustment apparatus including: a state observation section that observes, as state variables indicating a current state of an environment, cutting condition data indicating a laser cutting condition for a laser cutting and oblique rearward temperature rise data indicating a temperature rise value at an oblique rearward part of a cutting front of a workpiece, a determination data acquisition unit that acquires temperature rise value determination data for determining propriety of the temperature rise value during cutting based on the laser cutting condition for the laser cutting as determination data indicating a propriety determination result of the cutting of the workpiece, and a learning unit that learns the temperature rise value and adjustment of the laser cutting condition for the laser cutting in association with each other using the state variables and the determination data.

A system for performing computer-assisted image analysis of welds and related methods is disclosed. Digital images are captured at a worksite and sent to a remote image analysis system of a weld analytics system that analyzes images to determine whether the images conform to weld specifications. The remote image analysis system may be trained by artificial intelligence or machine learning.

A robotic electric arc welding system includes a welding torch, a welding robot configured to manipulate the welding torch during a welding operation, a robot controller operatively connected to the welding robot to control weaving movements of the welding torch along a weld seam and at a weave frequency and weave period, and a welding power supply operatively connected to the welding torch to control a welding waveform, and operatively connected to the robot controller for communication therewith. The welding power supply is configured to sample a plurality of weld parameters during a sampling period of the welding operation and form an analysis packet, and process the analysis packet to generate a weld quality score, wherein the welding power supply obtains the weave frequency or the weave period and automatically adjusts the sampling period for forming the analysis packet based on the weave frequency or the weave period.

A laser irradiation apparatus is a laser irradiation apparatus including a laser light source, the laser irradiation apparatus including a failure prediction unit configured to perform failure prediction on a movable part used when a substrate is processed by the laser light source, in which the failure prediction unit acquires a physical quantity when the movable part is movable, and derives a failure time of the movable part based on an acquired physical quantity.

A method for forming a pressure fit hermetic seal between a second component (104) and an interior member (108) is disclosed. The method comprises steps of coupling the second component (104) to a first component (102) by applying heat to one or more of the first component (102) and the second component (104) and allowing the first component (102) and the second component (104) to cool, wherein the applying heat step and allowing to cool step form the hermetic seal by causing compression of a hermetic element (106) against the second component (104) and by causing compression of the hermetic element (106) against the interior member (108).