Experience with shipyard installation of a hybrid pipe welding system
Laser-Gas Metal Arc (GMA) hybrid welding is fast making the transition from laboratory to production, in industries as diverse as shipbuilding to automobile manufacture. For the past 3 years, our team has striven to both develop a hybrid welding process for steel pipe, and to specify, build, and install a hybrid pipe welding system in a General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard. In March 2007, the system was successfully installed into the shipyard. This work presents a summary of our continued experimental explorations into various practical aspects of hybrid welding, discusses the system design, and provides an overview of the installation of the system into the shipyard. Test results are presented, as well as lessons learned throughout the project.
Continued experimental analysis of practical aspects of hybrid welding of thick sections
Laser-Gas Metal Arc (GMA) hybrid welding is fast making the transition from laboratory to production, in industries as diverse as shipbuilding to automobile manufacture. However, many aspects of hybrid laser welding are not well understood. This work presents a summary of our continued experimental explorations into various practical aspects of hybrid welding, such as joint design, gap tolerance, welding through conventional tack welds, weld overlap for circumferential pipe welding, and others.Laser-Gas Metal Arc (GMA) hybrid welding is fast making the transition from laboratory to production, in industries as diverse as shipbuilding to automobile manufacture. However, many aspects of hybrid laser welding are not well understood. This work presents a summary of our continued experimental explorations into various practical aspects of hybrid welding, such as joint design, gap tolerance, welding through conventional tack welds, weld overlap for circumferential pipe welding, and others.
Self-assembly of pyridinium-tailored anthracene amphiphiles into supramolecular hydrogels.
The mixing of a polyacid cross-linker with a pyridinium-functionalized anthracene amphiphile afforded a supramolecular hydrogel through a self-assembly process that was primarily driven by π-stacking and electrostatic interactions.