Focusing on carbon footprint for more sustainable welding

By Staff Report September 10, 2024 12:17 pm

Fronius is taking a revolutionary step in terms of sustainability and its use of resources by carrying out a certified life cycle assessment (LCA) for welding applications. Taking a holistic view of welding, from device manufacturing through customer use to end of life, yields insights into the key areas where we can reduce the carbon footprint. As pioneers in the industry, we are looking to address these areas in cooperation with our customers.

There’s no question that welding creates long-lasting bonds between metals. But how can we make this process one that will last by enhancing its sustainability in the customer’s application—in terms of the environmental impact? “For our customers, in addition to cost-effectiveness, the carbon footprint of their production processes and components is becoming more and more important. That’s why we want to create added value for the users of our welding solutions, not only by further minimizing the carbon footprint of our devices but also by helping companies to reduce their consumption of resources during welding,” emphasizes Harald Scherleitner, Global Director of Sales and Marketing, Business Unit Perfect Welding, Fronius International GmbH. 

Facts over feelings
The discussion around sustainability is emotionally charged, but at Fronius, our approach to sustainability centres on the evidence. We start by bringing the facts to the table: “We examined two typical, real-world applications that our customers use when welding steel and aluminium, and had the analysis certified by the highly regarded Fraunhofer Institute,” explains David Schönmayr, Team Leader for Product Sustainability at Fronius International GmbH. Fronius experts, together with partner to4to (together for tomorrow), meticulously assessed the environmental effects of the welding variables, such as material, energy, gas, and emissions using standardized methods as part of a life cycle analysis. Based on this, we can get a detailed picture of a welding machine—in this case the TPS/i 320 and TPS/i 400. This comprehensive “cradle-to-grave” approach starts with the procurement of the raw materials, includes the production of the welding machines and transport, as well as years of use in industrial shifts, including wear parts, and also examines what happens when the welding machine has reached the end of its life cycle after a long service life. 

Translating the carbon footprint to 1 meter of weld
Every component and every welding application is individual and influenced by many factors, such as the base material, the seam geometry, and the welding parameters used. That’s why Fronius chose a framework that allows the results to be presented clearly so they’re easy to understand. “We translate the CO₂ proportion of the relevant parameters over to 1 meter of weld because it quickly shows us where our starting point should be,” Schönmayr explains. “For the CO₂ proportion in use, we’ve based our calculations on the welds of robot series production with a typical duty cycle of eight years. We did this by referring to actual customer examples, which consisted of an automotive supplier that uses the TPS 400i in its robot configuration for steel welding and a vehicle manufacturer that welds with the TPS 320i CMT.” 

The biggest lever: resource-efficient use
In the life cycle of a Fronius TPS/i welding system, only around 0.5% of the total CO₂ equivalents comes down to the production, repair, and disposal of the welding machine. The rest is split between the filler metal, the shielding gas, and the energy consumed, which highlights the importance of making efficient use of these resources in particular. 

“The good news is that at Fronius we have already been working for many years to keep our material and energy consumption during welding as low as possible. To this end, we have built up almost 75 years of know-how and developed innovative—and sometimes groundbreaking—technologies such as the first inverter welding machines (Transarc 500), the first digitally process-controlled TPS welding systems, and the revolutionary CMT (Cold Metal Transfer) welding process. When it comes to efficiency, we believe that digitalization continues to present tremendous potential,” affirms Scherleitner. By using the WeldCube Premium welding data management and analysis tool, many Fronius customers have already succeeded in optimizing their production—and thanks to the high quality of the results, they are now boosting their time and material savings as well. 

Economic benefits = environmental benefits
Fronius wants to work together with its customers to tackle areas where CO₂ can be reduced. High welding quality plays a central role here to ensure the materials are used as efficiently as possible, or in other words by avoiding wasting resources with rejects or rework. Reproducible, high-quality welded joints protect both the bottom line and the environment, which is why taking a holistic view of production at the component level (TCOP—total cost of production) can have a huge impact. However, Fronius also has solutions that are very easy to implement, such as the OPT/i Gas digital gas controller, which can reduce shielding gas use by an average of 40%. If there are lots of short welds, the savings potential is even higher.

“Sustainability in joining is at the top of our agenda. Our experts in research and development follow the ‘Sustainability by Design’ approach. In this way, we create environmentally inspired innovations combined with our understanding of the challenges faced by our customers. However, the best way to save material, time, and money while gradually reducing the carbon footprint is by working together. Our LCA is only the starting point for a series of tips that we’ll be sharing with our customers,” summarizes Scherleitner. 

The experts at Fronius can provide targeted support to help customers identify carbon savings potential in production, for example by using the OPT/i Gas digital gas controller or the WeldCube Premium monitoring and analysis tool.