An information model based weld schedule database

Conference · Fri Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1997

OSTI ID:510434

Kleban, S D; Knorovsky, G A ^[1]; Hicken, G K ^[2]; Gershanok, G A ^[3]

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1. Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2. Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (United States)
3. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)

As part of a computerized system (SmartWeld) developed at Sandia National Laboratories to facilitate agile manufacturing of welded assemblies, a weld schedule database (WSDB) was also developed. SmartWeld`s overall goals are to shorten the design-to-product time frame and to promote right-the-first-time weldment design and manufacture by providing welding process selection guidance to component designers. The associated WSDB evolved into a substantial subproject by itself. At first, it was thought that the database would store perhaps 50 parameters about a weld schedule. This was a woeful underestimate: the current WSDB has over 500 parameters defined in 73 tables. This includes data bout the weld, the piece parts involved, the piece part geometry, and great detail about the schedule and intervals involved in performing the weld. This complex database was built using information modeling techniques. Information modeling is a process that creates a model of objects and their roles for a given domain (i.e. welding). The Natural-Language Information Analysis methodology (NIAM) technique was used, which is characterized by: (1) elementary facts being stated in natural language by the welding expert, (2) determinism (the resulting model is provably repeatable, i.e. it gives the same answer every time), and (3) extensibility (the model can be added to without changing existing structure). The information model produced a highly normalized relational schema that was translated to Oracle{trademark} Relational Database Management Systems for implementation.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 510434
• Report Number(s): SAND--97-1610C; CONF-970777--1; ON: DE97007133
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTER-AIDED MANUFACTURING
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT
EXPERT SYSTEMS
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MECHANICAL STRUCTURES
WELDING