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Welding costs
As an industrial process, the cost of welding plays a key role in
manufacturing decisions. Different welding methods have different machine costs,
labor costs, material costs, and energy costs, and as a result, cost
considerations impact manufacturing decision making. Machine costs range from
relatively inexpensive processes, such as shielded metal arc welding and
oxy-fuel welding to methods like laser beam welding and electron beam welding,
which are only used on
extremely
high production runs. Furthermore, the use of automation and robots can greatly
increase these costs. Labor costs depend on several factors, including the
deposition rate (the rate at which a mass of weld metal is melted), the hourly
wage, and the operation time, which includes the time that the arc is struck and
the handling time. The cost of materials includes the cost of the base material,
the cost of any filler wire used, and the cost of shielding gases. Finally,
energy costs depend on arc time and welding power demand, but these costs
normally do not amount to more than several percent of the total welding cost.
For manual welding methods, labor costs often make up the vast majority of the total cost. Filler metal costs tend to increase when welding specialized materials, and machine costs only increase when automation enters the picture. As a result, most cost-savings measures are focused on minimizing the operation time. To do this, welding procedures with high deposition rates can be selected, and weld parameters can be fine-tuned to increase welding speed. Planning the work can also lead to an improvement in work efficiency and thus cost. Finally, welding time can be greatly reduced by mechanization and automization, but while these reduce labor costs, the cost of extra equipment and additional setup time must be considered.
Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Material from the Wikipedia article "Welding". This article is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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