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weldNet® - "The smart way to weld" - our new Material Manager

2022-01-18 | 

When 35,000 base materials and 24,000 chemical analysis are available in one database - in fractions of a second, that means the masterminds at voestalpine Böhler Welding have come up with a new smart service for their clients.

weldNet® Material Manager is a web application for

  • Base material selection
  • Welding consumables selection
  • Welding recommendations
  • Validity status of relevant standards

Benefits

  • Intelligent & quick search in cloud-based voestalpine Böhler Welding material database
  • > 35.000 base materials designations with chemical composition, mechanical properties, recommended consumables & pickling products
  • Böhler Welding filler material portfolio
  • > 2.200 EN & AWS welding relevant standard titles incl. validity & issue date
  • Web application available 24/7
  • Optimized for desktop & mobile devices
  • Intuitive design – easy to use

Material and material designations
are very hot topics in welding technology.
You can look up this information in thick books
or standards, with no guarantee that it's up to date,
OR you can get it from us in the Material Manager within seconds.

Gerhard Posch, VP Knowledge & Data Management
  • Welding is a very complex joining process and is defined as a "special process" in ISO 9000 / ISO 3834.

    This means that each quality-determining weld requires a written instruction, the Welding Procedure Specification ("WPS"), which specifies all the factors relevant to welding. Up to 90 parameters must be defined for a complete WPS - from the base material, the consumable, auxiliary materials, the weld shape, the layer structure, the welding equipment, to the individual welding parameters.

    The goal we are pursuing in knowledge management is the complete digitization of these WPSs, so that we can then use them as a basis for digital quality assurance and documentation—but the requisite knowledge for this must also be made available digitally.

  • Welding isn't "alchemy". On the contrary, a great deal has been standardized and defined in various sets of rules.

    So, you don't need to invent anything new—it's "just" a matter of digitally mapping the knowledge contained in the standards.
    The basic materials and their fundamental description are a core element. However, this information isn't available to the required extent in any commercial database, so we've built up our own.

    This brings us to the "weldNet® Material Manager"—our first "smart service": This is a search tool par excellence for this database! An essential feature of the Material Manager is the ability to compare materials, for example in regard to old and new material designations, their basic mechanical/chemical properties, the standard classifications, and the recommended consumables. There are also complete welding recommendations for a number of unalloyed steels.

With the new weldNet® Material Manager, core welding processes and parts of everyday work can be made more efficient and handled digitally in the simplest way. The weldNet® Material Manager can be accessed with all technological end devices (PC, notebook, tablet, smartphone), and it offers high-quality search results in real time thanks to intelligent search.

Thomas Reithofer, Vice President Global Equipment Services & Digital Solutions
  • The "main function" is definitely the access to the large database that we maintain and the clear, up-to-date presentation of the information. This smart service is mainly for searching for material designations and corresponding comparable materials.

    In the Material Manager we also offer the ability to search for recommended consumables with their corresponding data sheets. Comparable consumables, complete consumable recommendations, and even the recommended pickling agent can also be found in an extremely short time with the Material Manager.

    A rough overview of mechanical properties, for example strength, can also be retrieved. Of course, the chemical composition of the base material is very important to the welding expert—and here we can contribute the analysis limits for many materials. 

  • The Material Manager is a cloud-based online tool that can be used with all technological digital end devices via the Internet, i.e. PC, notebook, tablet or smartphone.

  • Welding engineers and welding technologists, designers, buyers, distributors, and also material scientists, as the Material Manager bridges the gap between chemical analysis-based theory and description-oriented practice.

The weldNet® Material Manager is another innovative cornerstone for long-lasting successful partnerships.

Thomas Platzer, CSO
  • As far as this smart service is concerned, I don't know what could be done better. It's a compact, extremely fast search tool.

    Probably one of the fastest users have ever seen - a search engine optimized for searching has been implemented here and delivers results in a fraction of a second. What will be expanded in the future is the database. American steels, nickel-based and aluminum alloys as well as even more welding recommendations.

  • We've developed a subscription system that gives the customer access to 35,000 materials, 24,000 chemical analysis along with the appropriate consumables, and over 2000 welding recommendations. 300 of the most important base materials and the entire range of welding consumables including properties are available free of charge.

    With the weldNet ® Material Manager, we're taking another important step to support our customers in the future with first-class total solutions for their complex welding tasks. The efficient provision of knowledge and the ongoing development of new digital solutions is already a key factor in the welding industry.