Chris Punshon, Conrad Dumont, Max Nentwich, Nick Edge, Cambridge Vacuum Engineering, Cambridge, United Kingdom
The growing trend towards decarbonising of Energy production, Industrial processes and Transportation has led to development of new manufacturing technologies employing electron beam welding as a key element in rapid, high integrity processing and joining of materials.
In particular, these developments will be illustrated by examples of methods for the fabrication of large thick section steel structures for offshore wind foundations, nuclear power generation and associated plant using local vacuum electron beam welding where the entire structure (often weighing in excess of 1000 tonnes) cannot be readily or practically enclosed in a vacuum chamber.
In addition, the development of electron beam welding in the serial manufacture of components for electrification of transport including batteries, fuel cells, motors, electrical shunts and inverters will be illustrated indicating the potential for improved reliability, performance and productivity by means of a number of worked examples.
Comparison of manufacturing costs and energy savings for each example will be reported.