This study analyzed the characteristics of aluminum and copper sheets under multi-layer ultrasonic welding, and observed the strength, fracture type, and interface of the weld zone according to location. In addition, an experimental plan was developed using the Taguchi method to optimize the quadruple lap ultrasonic welding process conditions of 0.4t aluminum and copper sheets, and the experiment was performed for each of 25 welding condition. For strength evaluation, the ultrasonic welding performance was evaluated by measuring the tensile strength as a composite material and the shear force at the weld interface through two types of tensile tests: simultaneous tensile and individual tensile. To identify the individual shear strengths of the multi-layer dissimilar ultrasonic welds, three types of tensile tests were performed for each specimen depending on the location of the welded, and as the distance from the horn increased, each of shear strength decreased while the difference in strength value increased. For quadruple lap welding of pure aluminum and copper sheets, the S/N (Signal to Noise Ratio) was the highest at 64.48 with a coarse-grain pattern and optimal welding conditions, and this was selected as the optimal condition. To evaluate the optimized welding condition, additional tests were conducted using the welding conditions that showed the maximum strength values and the welding conditions optimized using the Taguchi method through simple tests. A strength evaluation of the optimized weldment was performed, and for a simultaneous tensile test, it was found that the strength of the optimized weldment was improved by 45% compared to other cases.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is tightening regulations, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ship operations. As a result, the number of vessels using Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as fuel has increased rapidly. At this time, ASTM A553-1 (9% nickel steel) is being used as a tank material for storing LNG as fuel, because it has higher strength than other cryogenic materials. Currently, shipyards are manufacturing LNG fuel tanks by using the Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) method, using 9% nickel steel material. However, fabrication through FCAW welding has two drawbacks. The first is to use a welding electrode that is 20 times higher in cost than the base metal, and the second is that the total production cost increases because the thickness of the tank increases due to the strength drop near the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) after welding. Laser welding, which does not require additional welding rods and has no strength reduction in the HAZ, can overcome the drawbacks of FCAW welding and ensure price competitiveness. In this study, it is confirmed the characteristics of the penetration shape of Bead on Plate (BOP) after various laser welding conditions as a basic study to apply laser welding to A553-1 welding. For this, penetration characteristics of A553-1, according to laser welding speed and power, which is a main factor of laser welding, are confirmed.

Nine percent nickel steel has excellent properties in a cryogenic environment, so it has recently been used as a tank material for most LNG fuel-powered ships. However, 9% nickel steel causes arc deflection due to its tendency of magnetization during manual FCAW welding and the currently used filler metal is 10–25 times more expensive as a base metal compared to other materials, depending on manufacturers. Furthermore, the properties of its filler metal cause limitation in the welding position. To overcome these disadvantages, in this study, the tendency of penetration shape was analyzed through a fiber laser Bead on Plate (BOP) welding for 9% nickel steel with a thickness of 6 mm and a range of welding conditions for 1-pass laser butt welding of 6 mm thick 9% nickel steel with I-Groove were derived. Through this study, basic data capable of deriving optimal conditions for laser butt welding of 9% nickel steel with a thickness of 6 mm were obtained.

As the environmental pollution issue has recently become significant, environmental regulations in Europe and the United States are being strengthened. Thus, there is a demand for the quality improvement of emission after-treatment systems to satisfy the strengthened environmental regulations. Reducing the amount of welding heat distortion by optimization of the welding order of each part could be a solution for quality improvement since the emission after-treatment system consists of many parts and each assembly is produced by welding individual ones. In this research, a method to derive a welding sequence that effectively minimizes welding deformation was proposed. A two-stage simulation was performed to obtain the optimal welding sequence. In the first stage, the welding sequence was derived by analyzing the number of welding groups in each assembly of a structure. The derived welding sequence was verified by performing a thermal elasto-plastic analysis and comparing it with the experimental results.

Due to its excellent toughness and stiffness in cryogenic conditions, 9% nickel steel is applied to LNG storage facilities, and its usage is increasing as a result of changes in environmental regulations. A study was conducted on the development of a predictive model to optimize the laser welding process of 9% nickel steel, and two prediction models were developed using one hundred data points obtained through experiments. A global regression model used as a general prediction model and a modified regression model using the p-value of the analysis of variance were developed, and their prediction performance was compared. It was found that the modified regression model was superior to the global regression model in terms of predicting the bead shape, including parameters such as penetration depth, bead height, and area ratio.

As a result of strengthened sulfur content standards for ship fuel oil in IMO regulations, major domestic and foreign carriers have a high and growing demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered ships and related equipment. For LNG operation in a cryogenic environment, a storage tank and fuel supply system that uses steel with excellent brittleness and fatigue strength is required. Ships that use LNG have a high vulnerability to explosion and fire. For this reason, 9% Ni is typically used, since a ship requires high quality products with special materials and structural technologies that guarantee operability at cryogenic temperatures. However, there is an urgent need for research to derive a uniform welding quality, since high process difficulty and differences in welding quality related to a welder’s skills can cause a deterioration of the weld quality in the 9% Ni steel welding process. For 9% Ni steel, the higher the dilution ratio of the base metal, the lower the strength. In order to secure the required strength, excessive dilution of the base metal should be avoided, and the relationship between dilution ratio and strength should be investigated. According to previous research, if it exceeds 25% it may be lower than the API standard of 363 MPa for hardening welds. Therefore, in this study, the flux cored arc welding process is performed by establishing criteria that can be evaluated based on the SVM method in order to determine the structure of the weld to be cured according to the dilution rate of the base metal. We would like to propose a multipurpose optimization algorithm to ensure uniform quality of 9% Ni steel.