Download or read book Modeling and Control Strategies for Multiprocess Arc Welding Power Sources written by Jonathon C. Kelm and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern Multiprocess Arc Welding Power Source (MAWPS) is a Switched-Mode Power Supply (SMPS) that has been designed to produce waveforms used for multiple arc welding processes, such as Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW), Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW), Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW), and Flux-Cored Arc Welding (FCAW). MAWPS control is challenging for a number of reasons, including the complex dynamics of switching power converters, transient conditions encountered in the metal transfer process, wide variations in load impedance, a need for tracking complex reference waveforms, incomplete or inaccurate models of the welding process itself, the difficulty of addressing the needs of several welding processes using a single machine, an electrically harsh environment with high levels of electromagnetic noise, and health and safety concerns. In this work, models of the equipment in a welding setup are developed that can be used for analysis and control system design. The models are used to develop a simulation environment and a new control strategy for a welding power source from Lincoln Electric, using Sliding Mode Control (SMC). While SMC has been applied to SMPS elsewhere in the literature, this work focuses on the particular needs of the welding power source and incorporates output current, voltage, and power reference tracking, switching frequency control, and output constraints. A hardware implementation of the SMC strategy is described, and its performance is compared against the existing control system and computer simulations. While some implementation details still need to be worked out, the SMC strategy is shown to be feasible to implement and to provide significant improvements in the current, voltage, and power tracking performance. These improvements should have a direct impact on the welding performance of the Multiprocess Arc Welding Power Source (MAWPS).