TPi January 2017

Welding technology

Extended inert gas coverage during titanium and stainless

steel welding To avoid metallurgical defects, to remove oxidation and discolouration, and to save expensive cleaning costs on titanium and stainless steel tubes, pipes and sheet metal welding, Argweld ® Trailing Shields ® are available. Manufactured by Huntingdon Fusion Techniques (HFT), Trailing Shields provide additional inert gas coverage during welding to avoid metallurgical defects, prevent oxidation and give bright, oxide-free, zero-colour welds. The reusable shields are suitable for any diameter of tube, pipe, tank or vessel from 1" upwards, and for flat sheet

metal. They are lightweight and easily attach to standard manual or automatic TIG/GTAW and plasma/PAW welding torches. Luke Keane, distributor support for HFT, said, “Once they are connected to the welding torch, our Trailing Shields are easily connected to the argon gas supply. “The gas is diffused out evenly, without turbulence, through the multi layers of stainless steel mesh built into the body of each shield. “At each side, removable silicone

A selection of Argweld Trailing Shields

under an argon gas shield until the metal has cooled below its oxidation temperature.” For manual welding, the welder will find no difficulty in dragging the lightweight tool along the surface being welded. A further benefit is that it carries the welding torch at 90° to the weld. When Trailing Shields are fitted to torches on automatic welding machines it is possible to raise the welding speed and exploit the benefits of automatic welding. Each Trailing Shield is delivered with a variable diameter connector so that it can fit any size of TIG/GTAW/PAW welding torch for manual or mechanised welding. Huntingdon Fusion Techniques – UK pipe ends. The work was carried out in three separate mobilisations. Five OMS engineers were deployed for ten weeks at the Bredero Shaw pipe yard in Batam Island, Indonesia, to measure more than 9,000 pipe ends. In addition, two OMS engineers were deployed for two weeks at the Socotherm pipe facility in Sicily, Italy, where an additional 750 pipe ends were measured. The pipe sizes measured were a mix of 10", 12", 14" and 16" in diameter. Optical Metrology Services Ltd – UK www.omsmeasure.com hft@huntingdonfusion.com www.huntingdonfusion.com

rubber side shields provide a barrier to prevent the argon escaping sideways so that it remains over the weld metal. These silicone shields are a consumable and are replaceable as they become worn. “From the beginning, the weld has extra argon to that amount coming through the gas cup. Then, as the welding torch is moved forward, the weld remains

Trailing Shields in use

Ultra-deep offshore project Oil and gas pipe measurement specialist Optical Metrology Services (OMS) has completed a series of pipe measurement surveys for the Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project.

800km 2 site in the central and southeast part of the block. The water depth at this location ranges from 1,400m to 1,900m. The project involves the drilling of 59 subsea wells, which will be connected via 300km of subsea pipelines to two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels. Associated gas from the fields will be transferred to the Angola Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Soyo. Production is scheduled to start in 2017, with production capacity expected to be 230,000 barrels a day. OMS was contracted to perform onshore pipe end dimensioning of more than 10,000

The scope of work involved end dimensioning, numbering and colour banding of deep-sea, fatigue-critical flowline pipe, steel catenary risers (SCR) and long seam welded line pipe. Kaombo Ultra-Deep Offshore Project involves the development of six of the 12 fields discovered at Block 32, around 260km offshore Luanda in Angola. The project is located in an

56

TUBE PRODUCTS INTERNATIONAL January 2017

www.read-tpi.com