The system for measuring deformations during welding

The paper deals with industrial application of the system for measuring longitudinal deformations when welding thick-walled vessels, which is necessary to protect the weld and welded parts. Heating of the material leads to its expansion, which may for example damage the anchorage of parts, or cause collapse of the weld. To compensate the deformation it must be applied pretension, which size cannot exceed safe limits. The new system replaces a set of analog gauges, which the operator had to keep checking visually. This system allows for synchronized reading of four linear encoders, visualization of values, detection of exceeding the specified limits and communication with the PC via LAN or RS485. Application on the PC records the data to xls workbooks at regular intervals or when the values changed in defined range.