ESI Group announces Weld Planner

PARIS, FRANCE: ESI Group, a pioneer and worldleading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, has released the WELD PLANNER, an innovative software that enables you to evaluate and control Welding Distortion Engineering at the early stage of Preliminary Design and Planning. ESI Group’s WELD PLANNER allows you to considerably reduce time-to-production and hereby save in production costs.

The new WELD PLANNER is a milestone in terms of simplicity. The application provides access to welding-induced distortion simulation for people unfamiliar with Finite Elements Simulation. Training to be fully operational is completed in just one day. WELD PLANNER is a streamlined solution, which includes fast generation or automatic finding of weld seams between parts; convenient definition of the welding sequence as a robot plan; typical industrial clamping conditions; and versatile possibilities for the visualization of computed distortion.

“WELD PLANNER is dedicated to product design and production planning. It enables you to control welding distortion of complex welded designs in less than one day, and consequently make significant savings in experimental try-out loops and distortion repair cost”, said Harald Porzner ESI Group Product Manager. “WELD PLANNER is well integrated in ESI Group’s complete Welding Simulation Solution - you can manage your business on demand, from early feasibility to detailed weld design and weld quality evaluation”, he continued.

This breakthrough application is the result of many years of collaboration with INPRO GmbH, and industry leaders such as Volkswagen AG, DAIMLER AG and ThyssenKrupp Technologies AG. WELD PLANNER fulfils market needs in terms of quick simulation response and the availability of a needed database, which are critical to successful simulation, especially in the Preliminary Design phase.“WELD PLANNER is an easy to use and fast predictive tool. In the future, it will be integrated in product development at VW in Braunschweig. WELD PLANNER has the potential to save one to two experimental loops, meaning 10 to 20k€ per part”, declared Hans-Werner Scholz from the Development department at Volkswagen Braunschweig.

WELD PLANNER is now commercially available. Seize the opportunity to subscribe to a one-day certifying training course to perform simulation-based welding distortion engineering. Together with the training comes a one-month trial license that can be used in production mode from the very first day.