Development of an advanced system to weld corrosion resistant alloys and clad pipes

Conference · Fri Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:33190

Belloni, A ^[1]; Celant, M ^[2]

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1. Saipem, Milan (Italy). Research and Development Welding Dept.
2. Celant (M.), Milan (Italy)

Corrosion problems in hydrocarbon pipeline systems are increasing with the presence of aggressive compounds, like CO{sub 2}, H{sub 2}S, chlorides and elemental sulfur. Clad pipes and corrosion resistant alloys have been made available on the market to solve these problems, but the application of these exotic materials for offshore pipelines is limited because of their cost, which has presently made their use economical for small diameters and short lengths only. This paper introduces a Saipem proposal to significantly reduce the costs related to pipelaying operations. Saipem developed a fully automatic, four welding heads equipment, called roboweld, which by using the hot wire GTAW process (which is faster than the cold wire GTAW process) will, among other benefits, increase the pipelaying productivity and improve the overall system reliability as the weld quality and productivity are no longer dependent on the human factor. This paper includes a description of the welding procedure and equipment as developed by Saipem and an overall analysis of the cost savings arising by the utilization of the automatic Roboweld system instead of the conventional mechanized systems.

• OSTI ID: 33190
• Report Number(s): CONF-930641--; ISBN 0-7918-0785-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CARBON STEELS
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
CONTROL SYSTEMS
ECONOMICS
HIGH ALLOY STEELS
OFFSHORE PLATFORMS
PIPES
PRODUCTIVITY
REPAIR
WELDING
WELDING MACHINES