The first bead starts cold: thermal history of a bead sequence
Same robot, same program, same bead sequence. The first bead is the coldest one.
Thermal footage of bead 1 and bead 2 of the same sequence, side by side, with the apparent peak temperature frame by frame. One bead later the metal around the weld is already warm.
What you see
- HeatCam thermal footage at 25 fps of bead 1 and bead 2 of the same sequence, with the apparent peak temperature frame by frame.
- Bead 1 median apparent peak 737 °C, bead 2 882 °C: one bead later, +145 °C, because the metal around it is already warm.
- All 10 beads of that sequence: bead 1 is the coldest.
- In 7 of 8 bead sequences the first bead runs 64–169 °C below the median of the beads that follow.
How to read it
- Values are apparent temperatures (emissivity 0.8).
- They come from 97 robot welds in 8 sequences, ER70S-6 0.8 mm wire, recorded in our R&D cell.
- It is a thermal-history observation, not a weld-quality verdict.
Who it is for
Welding and quality engineers in multi-pass and robotic welding who need to see the thermal history of every bead, not only the parameters that were set.
Where the recording comes from
The thermal footage comes from a HeatCam IR-C thermal camera, the sensor behind HeatCore AI. To see the thermal history on your own welds, ask for a HeatCore AI demo.
