Input electrical impedance as signature for nondestructive evaluation of weld quality during ultrasonic welding of plastics

As a wide applied joining process of plastics with long history, ultrasonic welding of plastics could be helped by newer technologies in sensing, pattern recognition, etc. to improve production rate and weld quality. This paper introduces a new concept which allows in situ monitoring of an ultrasonic welding process in real time and assessing the resulted weld quality right after the completion of the process. In the method, the input voltage and current of a welding machine are first probed and processed to obtain the input electrical impedance during the whole welding period. Because there are no changes of the dynamic properties of the welding machine and fixtures during the process, the detected waveforms of the real and imaginary part of the impedance directly reflect the thermo-mechanical behavior of the plastic work-pieces at the joining point. By recognizing the patterns of these waveforms, the joining quality could then be properly evaluated. This new concept and the accordingly derived nondestructive evaluation method were investigated experimentally. The results show that the input electrical impedance is an effective signature and that the built system evaluates bonding quality of welds effectively and efficiently.