TY - CONF A1 - Pittner, Andreas A1 - Fabry, Cagtay A1 - Thiele, Marc A1 - Artinov, Antoni A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Automated Arc Welding and Sensor Based Quality Assessment for Enhancing Fatigue Strength and Structural Reliability of Offshore Wind Turbine Supports N2 - Offshore wind energy plays a crucial role in achieving a carbon dioxide free industrial sector in the coming decades. However, foundation systems for offshore wind turbines significantly impact the overall installation process, posing technical and regulatory challenges. Adopting lightweight design principles in steel construction such as dissolved load bearing structures in jacket foundations offers substantial potential for reducing resource consumption, particularly steel usage. This presentation explores the complete digitalization of welding manufacturing and testing processes, enabling fully automated production and data driven quality assessment of tubular nodes, which are vital components of jacket foundations. The study also investigates the relationship between seam geometry and fatigue strength inspired by bionic design principles. The results demonstrate that tubular nodes can be welded entirely automatically, accommodating geometric tolerances, and that seam geometries ca n be precisely manufactured according to suggestions from e.g. numerical models or other sources . These advancements significantly enhance the fatigue strength and service life of offshore wind turbine support structures. T2 - IIW Annual Assembly 2025 CY - Genova, Italy DA - 23.06.2025 KW - Automated gas metal arc welding KW - Quality assessment and control KW - Support structures KW - Fatigue PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-65232 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -