TPT November 2013

Welding technology

Keyhole TIG redefines tube and pipe welding

“Creating and stabilising a keyhole in molten metal using TIG welding was previously not thought possible,” says Dr Jarvis. Fully understanding the physics involved and developing techniques to fully control the process took Dr Jarvis and his team more than eight years. “We ultimately developed the tools and high speed processing capability required to deliver an extremely robust welding process which is up to 100x faster than TIG, uses up to 95% less power, up to 95% less gas, requires no edge preparation and allows high-speed, full-penetration, single-pass welds to be performed by individuals with no welding experience.” “The K-TIG process excels with materials that are traditionally very challenging to weld,” he said. “Stainless steels, titanium, zirconioum, nickel alloys, cobalt alloys and others are welded to nuclear industry standards in a fraction of the time taken by traditional TIG welding.” “Take a 16mm titanium steel pipe,” said Dr Jarvis. “When welded using TIG, you would need to prepare the edges of the material into a V profile, you would need to perform the weld in 12 separate passes, and for every metre travelled you would have an arc-on time of 156 minutes, consume 665 grams of filler wire, 5,000 litres of gas, and the weld would need to be performed by a highly skilled welder,” he said. “When welded with K-TIG, the same weld requires no edge preparation, no filler material, no skilled welder, and for every metre travelled you have arc-on time of just 4 minutes, and gas consumption of just 240 litres of gas.” “The K-TIG process is ideally suited to both longitudinal welds which run along the length of the pipe, and circumferential welds which join pieces of pipe end-to-end. The next stage of development is a 5G variant of the K-TIG system which will be clamped to a track on the exterior surface of a pipeline in the field to automate pipeline welding,” said Dr Jarvis.

already appears to be set to become the de facto standard for circumferential and longitudinal pipe welding,” he said. The new welding technology, originally developed by the CSIRO before being acquired by K-TIG, enables thick gauge materials, including traditionally difficult metals such as stainless steel and titanium, to be welded in a fraction of the time possible with standard welding processes. K-TIG CEO Neil Le Quesne said “K-TIG’s technology is transformational, and likely to be highly disruptive within the welding equipment market. The lightning speed of the welding process and, in many cases, a 95 per cent reduction in power and gas consumption dramatically reduces both the cost and carbon footprint of industrial welding.” “Due to the single-pass, full- penentration nature of the process, the weld quality tends to excite the head of engineering, the enormous cost savings get the attention of the CFOs while the massive reduction in energy consumption tends to get interest from CEOs,” said Mr Le Quesne.

AUSTRALIAN welding innovator K-TIG is now in full production of its game- changing keyhole TIG welding solution, and is focusing predominantly on the tube and pipe welding market. The Adelaide-based company, whose K-TIG welding system performs welds up to 100x the speed of traditional TIG welding, has completed extensive product trials in seven countries and is now shipping its keenly awaited first production units to customers in Australia and worldwide. K-TIG’s first export sales have been to the UK, Middle East, China and India where K-TIG’s distributors are focused on the tube and pipe, oil and gas and other markets. K-TIG has recently appointed Sydney- based Innovative Welding to spearhead its Australian distribution. “We are absolutely delighted to be representing K-TIG in Australia,” said Adam Poole, general manager of Innovative Welding. “The reception to this autogenous technology has been tremendous, and productivity benefits are shaping up to be enormous. It

“The opportunities within the tube and pipe sector are enormous. There are 100,000 kilometres of new pipeline currently in the planning or construction phase around the world,” said Mr Le Quesne. As well as offering huge benefits to the tube and pipe industry through time saving, reduced energy costs and lower reliance upon highly skilled labour, the K-TIG system is cloud-enabled and records comprehensive weld data for audit and control purposes. The recording and auditing capabilities of the system are considered vital to tube and pipe sector, where traceability is now becoming a critical issue. K-TIG founder and R&D manager Dr Laurie Jarvis led the 20-person CSIRO team who developed the underlying technology.

The K-TIG welding system

K-TIG – Australia Email: neil.lequesne@k-tig.com Website: www.k-tig.com

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N ovember 2013