Institute for Steel Construction Research Research projects
SmartWeld - Innovatives Design- und Fertigungskonzept zur Steigerung der Leichtbaupotenziale im Stahlbau

SmartWeld - Innovatives Design- und Fertigungskonzept zur Steigerung der Leichtbaupotenziale im Stahlbau

© Institut für Stahlbau
Led by:  Elyas Ghafoori
Team:  Tim Brömer
Year:  2021
Funding:  BMWi
Duration:  01.05.2021 - 30.04.2024

The SmartWeld project enables resource-efficient production of large-scale steel structures by the use of lightweight construction methods. The potential is exploited by ensuring the continuous availability of all relevant data along the production chain.  In the planned consortium, the entire product development and testing process will be examined for the example of hollow section joints for offshore jacket constructions. SmartWeld aims to optimise the production and dimensioning of jacket constructions and thus to enable a more economical and resource-saving foundation for offshore wind energy converters. Due to the stress concentrations in the weld seam area and the high dynamic loads from wind, waves and operation, the fatigue check at the jacket nodes is usually decisive. At the Leibniz University of Hannover, the weld seam geometry is designed prior to node production under consideration of bionic design approaches. By a specific adjustment of the seam geometry, a significant reduction of stress and thus a significant increase of the fatigue strength can be expected. The influence of the seam design and automated production is quantified in the project by extensive fatigue tests and numerical investigations. These processes and findings can be integrated into the manufacturing chain as quality monitoring, so that an economical design can be achieved.

Project partners:

·       Federal institute for materials research and testing, Berlin

·       Institute for Steel Construction, LUH Hannover

·       Test Centre for Support Structures, LUH Hannover

·       Fraunhofer IWES, Hannover

·       Salzgitter Mannesmann Forschung GmbH, Duisburg

·       Jörss – Blunck – Ordemann GmbH, Hamburg