Although Kuopio, Finland-based Savonia University of Applied Sciences (SUAS) is a multidisciplinary school, its common theme amongst all areas of study is developing real-world solutions based on creative experiments. In mid-2015, engineers in the school’s Innovative Engineering and Energy Industries department undertook an 18-month experiment to study how laser, arc and hybrid welding methods affect seam quality in cold-temperature machinery.
According to Kari Solehmainen, project engineer at SUAS, four local midsize companies that perform welding worked with the Savonia team during the study. The goal was to help make it easier and more cost-effective for Finnish manufacturers to incorporate robotic laser-hybrid welding into their assembly processes.