TPT July 2018

T E CHNOLOG Y

Titanium welding with flexible welding enclosures

opportunities offered by advanced engineering polymers. Huntingdon Fusion Techniques – UK Email: hft@huntingdonfusion.com Website: www.huntingdonfusion.com

IT is often necessary to weld titanium or nickel alloy parts in an oxygen-free environment, especially within the aerospace and additive manufacturing industries. In order to achieve oxide-free welds, it is important that the welding zone is purged of oxygen to a level as low as ten parts per million (ppm). Flexible Welding Enclosures ® manu- factured by Huntingdon Fusion Techniques (HFT) are one solution. Luke Keane, technical support for HFT, said, “Our standard and specially made enclosures are available for a fraction of the cost of a rigid welding chamber, providing a technically viable option to the very expensive metal chambers and purge boxes. Special Flexible Welding Enclosures can be designed and manufactured to suit any purpose. We’ve recently manufactured systems for complete robot manu- facturing cells and for GTAW (TIG) as well as laser additive manufacturing applications.” A vacuum system is not necessary to obtain a fast purging time down to a few ppm of oxygen. The Welding Enclosures are suitable for small production quantities of items that need total gas coverage, as well as single large items with critical joints. A combination of translucent material and optically clear sheet is used, depending on the viewing requirements. Large access zips are fitted to each enclosure, and additional entry points can be provided for operators’ gloves. A service panel incorporates access ports for welding torches, electrical leads and water-cooling supplies. A purge gas entry port and exhaust valve are also manufactured as standard, to vent displaced gas into the atmosphere. One company that uses the enclo- sures, Shapes Aerospace, commented: “We use our Argweld Flexible Welding Enclosure along with the PurgEye ® weld purge monitor every day for our titanium welding. They are built to last.” Compared to the conditions found with a rigid plastic or metal chamber, the flexible enclosures provide operator comfort and ease of use. HFT has been developing enclosures for many years, and has exploited the

Flexible enclosure with welded SS parts

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JULY 2018