Mon, 09 November, 2026
Industrial Members of TWI are invited to join a new joint industry project (JIP) that will provide independent, third-party assessment of techniques and equipment for improving thin plate welded fabrication that will offer several benefits to industry.
The project, ‘Reduce Distortion Correction Time in Welded Thin Plate Fabrication,’ will provide clear evidence to support adoption decisions for rectification practice and induction-heating investment.
About the Project
Set to run for two years, this project is primarily suited to those within the shipbuilding, off-highway machinery, and steel construction industries, where our experts will map the standards landscape (ISO 17663, class-society rules, customer specifications) and assess the materials, joint configurations, representative case studies and acceptance criteria favoured by the project sponsors.
This will allow us to align the research work to the specific needs and challenges faced by our Members ahead of mock-up trials to cover both flame straightening and induction heating. The trial data will then inform the development of a coupled thermo-mechanical finite element analysis (FEA) framework, calibrated and validated against the trial data, to predict resulting distortion and through-thickness thermal gradients as well as map the achievable correction envelope for the top-priority material / joint combinations.
This initial work will be extended during the project’s second year, with the extension of the correction-envelope mapping across the full consortium-prioritised matrix alongside sensitivity studies on starting distortion, heat-source parameters and operator variation. We will also provide a quantitative flame-vs-induction benchmark covering cost, time, HSE, and energy / carbon performance across representative duty cycles.
This research will lead to the development of preferred deliverables for the consortium, such as a guidance document, operator-facing app, industry-ready training package, and an optional surrogate-model back-end deployable as an in-process operator tool. All project sponsors will also be invited to a final workshop and project reporting along with other deliverables.
Benefits
The project will deliver validated, repeatable procedures, improving consistency and providing a foundation for future automation, with less rework meaning reduced time to market, lower costs, shorter cycles to increase output, and the retaining of knowledge in-house through the capture and transfer of operator expertise.
This JIP has been designed to provide a number of benefits for industry, including:
- Reduced cycle time — fewer heat-and-check iterations per part, with a predictable outcome at each step of the procedure
- Reduced rework cost — out-of-envelope parts diverted to alternative actions before they consume operator hours
- Knowledge that survives retirement — codified procedures and a structured training pipeline replace the current dependence on a small number of long-tenured operators
- Quantified flame-vs-induction business case — impartial cost, time, distortion-outcome, HSE and energy / carbon comparison across representative duty cycles
- Defendable, qualified procedures — pre-qualified procedure templates with documented evidence base, supporting customer and class-society submission (e.g. ISO 17663-aligned)
- Pre-competitive shared intellectual property — the full toolkit, training package and dataset will be owned jointly by the consortium
- Independent third-party assessment of induction-heating equipment from leading suppliers, de-risking sponsor procurement and deployment decisions.
Find Out More
We are holding a webinar to provide interested parties with more details of this JIP – letting Industrial Members gain an insight into the proposed work and ask questions ahead of signing up as a sponsor.
The online event is taking place on 19 November 2026 from 13:00 - 15:00 GMT and will be hosted by our Chief Simulation Engineer for Numerical Modelling and Optimisation, Michael Roy and Joint Industry Programme Manager, Sofia Sampethai.
You can see more and register to attend the launch meeting here: https://www.twi-global.com/private/events/industry-panel-meetings/jip-launch-reduce-distortion-correction-time