EngNet » Product & Service News » QuickPurge® your pipes for perfect welds

QuickPurge® your pipes for perfect welds

Product News Tuesday, December 20, 2016: Huntingdon Fusion Techniques Limited

Time is money. Welders, supervisors, welding engineers, quality control personnel and others are kept waiting, sometimes for many hours, for stainless steel or titanium pipe joints to be purged of oxygen ready for welding. Weld purging is necessary to reduce the oxygen content below 50 parts per million so that the weld surfaces and the adjacent hot metal doesn’t oxidise and thereby cause loss of corrosion resistance and metallurgical imperfections.

 

Such time loss and excessive waste of argon gas can be avoided now because of QuickPurge® Tube, Pipe and Pipeline Weld Purging Systems designed and manufactured by weld purging specialists and developers, Huntingdon Fusion Techniques HFT®.

 

Whatever the size of pipe, QuickPurge® Systems reduce waiting times so dramatically that they pay for themselves in less than one weld. For example, a 36” diameter stainless steel pipe can be purged down to 100 parts per million (ppm) of oxygen in under 32 minutes. Comparing this with weld purging using foam dams or other home made devices that will outgas heavily into the welding zone, taking many hours.

 

Ron Sewell, Chairman of Huntingdon Fusion Techniques HFT® said: “Recently, the Welding Manager at a leading pipework fabricator was tasked with reducing costs and waiting time in the department. The specialists at HFT® were contacted to discuss the possibility of helping with this requirement as well as to meet the technical demands of the welding process.”

 

“Several welds were made with different sizes of pipe and all were successful, creating confidence that the QuickPurge® System would indeed be a valuable choice for performance enhancement.

 

Some features of QuickPurge® Systems include:

 

·      An additional gas input line, allowing extra purge gas to be introduced for extra high speed purging down to the lowest oxygen levels, which is perfect for larger diameter pipes where quality welds are required. This extra cold argon gas input is perfect for mitigating the extra heat produced by the Plasma / TIG process.

 

·      The advanced design of the QuickPurge® System means that oxygen levels as low as 10 parts per million (ppm) can be reached every time, allowing zero colour welds to be achieved with no loss of corrosion resistance caused by oxidation.

 

·      IntaCal® combined with the integrated PurgeGate® device makes it possible to safely inflate the systems with argon gas, for sealing and then purging the space between the dams where the weld joint is located. With PurgeGate®, any risk of over inflation is due to pressure or flow increase, is eliminated.

 

·      All systems are manufactured as standard with a hose for connecting a Weld Purge Monitor®, which can read oxygen levels down to as low as 1 ppm (accurate to 10 ppm).

 

·      Materials used in the manufacture of QuickPurge® are such that they are resistant to the higher weld temperatures present and they don't outgas, preventing weld contamination.

 

For pre-heated chrome steel and high strength stainless steel pipe joints, HFT®manufactures the HotPurge® Systems for a higher and longer temperature exposure.

 

QuickPurge® Video is available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/x3YlH9pcKi4.