Lincoln Electric’s commitment to advancing welding science continues to shine. R&D consumables engineer Andrés Acuña has been awarded the prestigious William Spraragen Memorial Award by the American Welding Society (AWS) for his exceptional welding research. This accolade, reserved for the top research paper published in the Welding Journal’s Research Supplement, underscores both academic rigor and real-world relevance.
Researchers have introduced a multiphysics finite element model to study in-service welding with induction preheating. Unlike conventional approaches, this model integrates heat transfer, fluid flow, and electromagnetic heating into a coupled solution. The work focused on Type B sleeve repair and validated the simulation by comparing induction preheating temperatures with experimental data, reaching an error margin of 14.2%.
The results highlight how accounting for fluid flow and electromagnetic effects can better represent real welding conditions. Notably, temperature distribution across the pipe wall was accurately approximated, and different flow zones revealed varying cooling rates. The findings also pointed to the skin effect, with higher current density along the sleeve and pipe surface, influencing heat distribution during repair.
While the model requires significant computational effort, researchers demonstrated that processing time could be reduced by simplifying the mesh size and domain, cutting simulation time from 24 hours to under 2 hours.
The William Spraragen Award highlights contributions that push the boundaries of welding technology—a distinction that mirrors the standards set by its namesake, a founding figure of AWS’s Welding Journal . Acuña’s recognition reinforces Lincoln Electric’s legacy of fostering deep technical expertise and meaningful innovation in consumables.
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