Title: Optimisation of robotised sealing stations in paint shops by process simulation and automatic path planning

Authors: Andreas Mark; Robert Bohlin; Daniel Segerdahl; Fredrik Edelvik; Johan S. Carlson

Addresses: Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Computational Engineering and Design, Chalmers Science Park, SE-412 88 Gothenburg, Sweden ' Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Geometry and Motion Planning, Chalmers Science Park, SE-412 88 Gothenburg, Sweden ' Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Geometry and Motion Planning, Chalmers Science Park, SE-412 88 Gothenburg, Sweden ' Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Computational Engineering and Design, Chalmers Science Park, SE-412 88 Gothenburg, Sweden ' Fraunhofer-Chalmers Research Centre for Industrial Mathematics, Department of Geometry and Motion Planning, Chalmers Science Park, SE-412 88 Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract: Application of sealing materials is done in order to prevent water leakage into cavities of the car body, and to reduce noise. The complexity of the sealing spray process is characterised by multi-phase and free surface flows, multi-scale phenomena, and large moving geometries, which poses great challenges for mathematical modelling and simulation. The aim of this paper is to present a novel framework that includes detailed process simulation and automatic generation of collision free robot paths. To verify the simulations, the resulting width, thickness and shape of applied material on test plates as a function of time and spraying distance have been compared to experiments. The agreement is in general very good. The efficient implementation makes it possible to simulate application of one meter of sealing material in less than an hour on a standard computer, and it is therefore feasible to include such detailed simulations in the production preparation process and off-line programming of the sealing robots. [Received 12 April 2013; Revised 26 August 2013; Accepted 3 September 2013]

Keywords: off-line programming; OLP; sealing spray; volume of fluids; VOF; immersed boundary methods; automatic path planning; optimisation; process simulation; computational fluid dynamics; CFD; robot spraying; robot path planning; collision avoidance; sealants; automotive manufacturing; automobile industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2014.059597

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2014 Vol.9 No.1, pp.4 - 26

Published online: 29 Jul 2014 *

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