TPT November 2023

Inspecting and measuring welded tube defects THE Xiris WI-2200/3000 weld inspection system is a weld bead and tube geometry measurement solution that is used to monitor key parameters that relate to process stability and tube or pipe quality. Adding a Xiris WI system to a mill provides real-time monitoring for multiple defect conditions, enabling continuous incremental improvements of mill quality and productivity. length of the ideal profile line to be fit over the actual profile line. By knowing the position of the actual laser profile, the ideal profile, and the size of the pixels in the image, the WI-2200/3000 can calculate the various profile defects. pushed into the scarfing tool and as a result, removes too much material.

An alternative to measuring the width of the scarf cut is to measure the depth of the scarfed surface as it can sometimes be below the desired surface of the edges of the parent material. This defect can occur if the scarf tool has not been set up to remove the right amount of weld bead, or if the tube gets pushed into the scarfing tool due to debris. Debris on the supporting roller under the tube can occur on a periodic or random basis and can be difficult to detect with any other type of inspection process. The scarf defect measurement differs from the previous in that it measures the largest offset from a nominal surface as a way of indicating how non-smooth the scarfed surface of the tool is. A scarf tool is prone to wear and may chip or break. The effectiveness of the scarfing process is reduced as the resulting scarf surface changes from a clean cut to a rough surface from the damaged tool.

While most mill operators will use the weld inspection system directly after the weld box, some choose to place the inspection system after scarfing to check for quality issues related to the scarfing process. This article discusses defects, the scarf width, scarf depth and scarf defect. The scarf width measurement is taken after the scarfing tool and measures the size of the flat portion of the tube where the scarf has occurred. Sometimes, the scarf width can grow larger than desired if the scarf tool has been set to remove too much material, or the scarf tool has picked up too much dirt. For example, the support rollers used to hold the tube can get dirty with metal chips from the scarfing material and cause the tube to lift when debris gets caught between the roller and the tube. When this occurs, the tube gets

The many measurements that the weld inspection system can provide are based on the differences between the actual laser profile line seen by the camera and the ideal mathematical profile. The diameter of the tube determines the When a defect warning or failure limit is breached, an audio and/or light tower signal can be sent

Xiris Automation Inc www.xiris.com

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NOVEMBER 2023