Published Paper Details:

The process of joining coil ends using the submerged arc welding process is widely used in the manufacturing of HSAW pipes. To improve productivity, quality, and reduced rework, automation of internal and external welding processes were carried out using in-house modifications to enhance the manufacturing capabilities to supply API 5L grade line pipes with coil end welds. In the present work, the requirements of internal and external welding processes were studied for assessment of capability and the scope of improvement. Various devices such as laser sensors, cameras, HMIs, control panels and motors were assembled, tested, and connected to a central monitoring dashboard to keep an eye on the current welding parameters and other attributes like flux temperature. After several trials, a few minor adjustments were done to properly synchronize the internal and external welding heads with the grooves as per different coil widths and pipe diameters. Automatic laser seam tracking and spot laser were employed in external welding set-up to prevent bead-off in internal and external weld beads. The system has been made flexible enough to accommodate coils of any width and pipes of outside diameters ranging from 24" to 120". The system is established with SOPs and work instructions. The performance of these automated internal and external welding set-ups has been demonstrated in an internal project of grade API 5L X65M PSL2 grade with significant improvement in yield and quality as compared to the past projects without automation. The system also has the capability to be monitored from remote locations. Both the destructive and non-destructive tests showed that the quality of coil end welds was of a higher level in all respects.