Development of automatic welding system applied in subsea pipeline laying
In order to explore deep water oil and gas fields in South China Sea area, an automatic welding system applied in subsea pipeline laying has been developed, which has several features such as GMAW process, two welding carriages with dual torch, narrow gap and internal line up clamp fitted with copper backing rings. The welding carriage is specially designed for offshore application, so it is compact and lightweight. The control system of the automatic welding station is constructed on the CANOpen bus and Ethernet technologies, so the flexibility and reliability of the system are greatly improved, and the pipeline welding process also can be monitored remotely.
Automatic Pipeline Welding System with Self-Diagnostic Function and Laser Vision Sensor
Automatic welding has been used frequently on pipeline projects. The productivity and reliability are most essential features of the automatic welding system. The mechanized GMAW process is the most widely used welding process and the carriage and band system is most effective welding system for pipeline laying. This application-oriented paper introduces new automatic welding equipment for pipeline construction. It is based on cutting-edge design and practical welding physics to minimize downtime. This paper also describes the control system which was designed and implemented for new automatic welding equipment. The system has the self diagnostic function which facilitates maintenance and repairs, and also has the network function via which the welding task data can be transmitted and the welding process data can be monitored. The laser vision sensor was designed for narrow welding groove in order to implement higher accuracy of seam tracking and fully automatic operation.
Joint tracking and adaptive robotic welding using vision sensing of the weld joint geometry
An approach to the vision-guidance of welding robots and the in-process adjustment of welding conditions is presented. The implementation of a complete vision-guided adaptive robotic welding system is described. The vision-guided adaptive welding system described here has been used to track and weld a wide variety of test and production parts ranging in size from 1.6-mm (1/16-in.) sheet steel to 19.1-mm (3/4-in.) steel plate. Both conventional joint types, including square butt, lap, and V-groove, and special types, such as a multipass square butt submerged arc weld with pre-welded root passes or the axle joints were welded. Various welding procedures, such as GMA welding with a variety of shielding gases and submerged arc welding, have also been used.