TPi January 2017

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56 TUBE PRODUCTS INTERNATIONAL 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
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
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
Trailing Shields in use
A selection of
Argweld Trailing
Shields
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.
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
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
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