Study on Sub-sea Pipelines Hyperbaric Welding

Repair under High Air Pressures

Canfeng Zhou1, Xiangdong Jiao1, Long Xue1,

Jiaqing Chen1, and Xiaoming Fang2
1
Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology
2
Offshore Oil Engineering Co, Ltd.
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. Most Chinese sub-sea pipelines are buried in Bohai Sea less than 60m
water depth, where air diving are widely used For the application of offshore pipe-
lines repair, the hyperbaric TIG welding process under high air pressures has been
successfully developed. Firstly, the hyperbaric welding test chamber is designed
and constructed in laboratory, and the welding machine is manufactured. Then,
special welding experiments are carried out based on 16Mn steel plates and pipes
under 1-7bar air pressures, and high weld quality is obtained. Lastly, the sea-trial
of the welding machine and the welding procedure is carried out in Bohai Sea in
China, and a perfect all-position 5G girth weld of 16Mn steel pipe is achieved.

1 Introduction
Because high quality joint can be obtained, hyperbaric welding is often used in
offshore structures repair. The effects of pressure on electrical performance and
weld bead geometry at pressures up to 250bar, equivalent to water depths of
2500m (8,200ft), are investigated, and overall process stability of GMAW is
shown in Ref.1. Also under the same high pressure acceptable butt joints including
positional linear welds and orbital welds on API 5L X65, API 5L X70 and super-
martensitic pipeline steels are produced [2], and a fillet welded sleeve on API 5L
X65 pipeline are also obtained successfully [3], which can be of great application
value in driverless underwater repair system.
In fact, in order to develop driverless underwater repair system applied in tie-in
and hot tapping needed in many cases, such as the Langeled pipeline in the North
Sea, the study of hyperbaric welding has been carried out continually during the
past few years. Hyperbaric GMAW experiments based on X65 steel with low al-
loyed steel and Inconel 625 wires are carried out under the pressure of 12-35 bars,
and all the welds show excellent mechanical properties [4]. In addition, hyperbaric
GTAW of X70. Pipeline are also investigated, and the overall properties of the
produced weld are exceptional [5].
As is known to all, the circumstances of Bohai Sea differ a lot with that of the
North Sea, and the water depth is below 60m, air diving is usually used in under-
water repair. In the research of the sub-sea pipeline hyperbaric repair programme,
for the sake of flexibility and economical efficiency of the repair operation,

T.-J. Tarn et al. (Eds.): Robotic Welding, Intelligence and Automation, LNEE 88, pp. 391–397.
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392 C. Zhou et al.

compressed air is selected as chamber gases to drive water. However, two prob-
lems lie in the selection above, one is that the flammability of objects increases
greatly, the other is that the weld pool protection is more difficult [6]. In addition,
some other tough problems also must be solved, such as misalignment, arc view-
ing, and operation safety. The present investigation concerns hyperbaric GTAW
process based on 16Mn steel pipe under high air pressures. The hyperbaric weld-
ing test chamber is built, the orbital welding machine is manufactured, and suc-
cessful experiments are carried out.

2 Hyperbaric Welding Equipments

2.1 The Hyperbaric Welding Chamber

The inner space of the hyperbaric welding chamber (Fig. 1) is a room of 4.5m
×3.5m×3m, in which 3 divers can carry out tasks in sub-sea of 60m water depth
and 2 km flow current. Tools including the welding head are stored in waterproof
containers on the chamber sides. 2 manipulators are installed to hang up pipeline
from the sea bed, and can move up and down. The chamber can be adjusted along
three directions with hydro-cylinders integrated on the frame structure, and each
side with an inverted “U” opening to accommodate the pipeline. When the cham-
ber is set in right place and the pipeline is lifted by manipulators, two half rings
with rubbers is driven by hydro-cylinders to seal the circle part of the inverted “U”
opening. When compressed gases are charged into the chamber, water is driven
out from the floor gradually, and a dry hyperbaric space is built.

Fig. 1. The hyperbaric welding chamber

2.2 The Hyperbaric Welding Test Chamber and Pipe Welding

Machine
In order to develop welding process specifications under hyperbaric conditions in
laboratory, the hyperbaric welding test chamber is built, and the pipe welding ma-
chine is manufactured (Fig.2). The experiment system is mainly composed of the
test chamber, the gases storage tank, the automatic GTAW welding machine,
monitoring device and an air compressor. Hyperbaric welding test is carried out
Study on Sub-sea Pipelines Hyperbaric Welding Repair under High Air Pressures 393

by the welding head in the test chamber, a special designed horizontal pressure
vessel with inner diameter of 1600mm and a cover are driven by hydro-cylinders,
and the welding process is monitored by CCD cameras. Thanks to such a large
space, not only 5G girth weld of pipe, but any positional weld of plate can be pro-
duced in the chamber.
The pipe welding machine in the test chamber is installed on the guiding rail,
which is self-propelled and handled by the welders using the remote control box
outside the chamber. The three motor-driven axes of the welding bug can move
along the guiding rail, oscillate in the weld crosswise direction, and torch up and
down. During the welding process, images of arc and pool are trapped by CCD
cameras, and can be displayed on the TV screen outside the chamber synchronously.

Fig. 2. The test chamber and pipe welding machine

The tungsten electrode movement is controlled by a DC servo drive system

shown as Fig.3. According to the deviation between the arc voltage from the sen-
sor and the set voltage from the remote control box, PLC (Programmable Logic
Controller) outputs corresponding regulating voltage to the servo drive system.
Driven by the servo motor, the tungsten electrode is moved up and down till the
arc length equals to the set value of the control box. None other than the setting
arc length, the welding process of the pipeline repair can be carried out perfectly
although there is out-of roundness or misalignment to some extent. In addition,
compared to power source output voltage, arc length can be easily maintained
constant in spite of the complexity of chamber gases and cable, which can bring
great flexibility for pipeline repair.

U1
Arc voltage A/D card

U2
Setpoint voltage PLC
△=U1-U2
Servo drive system

Tungsten electrode

Fig. 3. Ungsten electrode control based on arc voltage feedback

394 C. Zhou et al.

In fact, arc voltage feedback is also the basement of touch striking arc ignition.
When the welding power source is just started, U1 equals to open-circuit voltage
of the power source. When the operator presses the welding button on the control
box, the electrode moves down and contacts with the work piece, U1 instantly
changes from open-circuit voltage to a value about 0, then the electrode moves up
and the arc is activated.

3 GTAW Arc under High Air Pressures

3.1 Testing Conditions

Under high air pressures varying between 1 and 7 bars, welding tests of 16Mn
steel plates at horizontal position are carried out to study arc behavior and static
characteristics. Around the non-consumable tungsten electrode, there is a ceramic
shroud through which higher argon is passed to create an inert atmosphere to pro-
tect the electrode from high atmospheric contamination. Filler wire is selected as
AWS5.18 ER70S-6 with a diameter of 0.8 mm.

3.2 Arc Behavior and Static Characteristics

A high speed camera housed in a special designed pressure proof enclosure is ap-
plied to obtain arc image under high air pressures. Typical observations at 1-7 bars
are shown in Fig. 4. Because particle density increases in proportion to the ambi-
ent pressure, energy losses from the outer regions of the arc increase gives rise to
arc cross-section contraction, and arc brightness increase. Undoubtedly, succes-
sive frames of arc image from the high speed camera indicate that GTAW process
is stable enough under high air pressures at 7 bars.

(a) 0 .1 M P a (b ) 0 .3 M P a

( c ) 0 .5 M P a (d ) 0 .7 M P a

Fig. 4. Arc images at high air pressures 1-7 bars

When the arc length equals to 5.5mm, arc static characteristic curves at 1-7 bars
are shown as Fig. 5, and several conclusions can be drawn thereby:
Study on Sub-sea Pipelines Hyperbaric Welding Repair under High Air Pressures 395

z Similar to other gas shielded arc welding processes, Arc voltage increases
when welding current increases from a rather large value about 50 A.
z Similar to hyperbaric welding process under Argon ambient conditions, arc
voltage increases about 5-10 V when air pressure increase 1 Mpa.
z Compared to Argon ambient conditions, arc voltage at the same pressure and
the same welding current is higher about 1 V, which can be explained from
more arc energy losses caused by air.

Therefore, the same welding power source and similar parameters under high Ar-
gon ambient conditions can be applied in high air pressures.

0 .1 M P a
0 .2 M P a
17 .5 0 .3 M P a
17 .0 0 .4 M P a
16 .5 0 .5 M P a
16 .0 0 .6 M P a
Arc voltage (U)

15 .5 0 .7 M P a
15 .0
14 .5
14 .0
13 .5
13 .0
12 .5
12 .0
11 .5
11 .0
10 .5

（）
20 40 60 80 100 12 0 140 1 60 18 0

Welding current A

Fig. 5. Arc static characteristic curves under different pressures

4 Girth Weld under High Air Pressures

On the basement of linear weld experiment, butt welds of pipe in 5G at 1-7 bar air
pressures were produced, shown in Fig. 6. The welds are completed in multiple
passes, including the root pass welded by pulsed current, and other passes welded
by constant current about 140-160 A. Compared to welding in atmosphere, in or-
der to realize perfect protection for the arc and weld pool, the pressure and flow of
shielding gas is much higher. For example, when ambient pressure is 7 bars, Ar-
gon flow is about 50 L/min. All welds are subjected to mechanical testing and
meet the requirements of AWS D3.6M:1999.

Fig. 6. Butt welds of pipe in 5G at 1-7 bar

396 C. Zhou et al.

5 Sea-Trial of The Welding Repair System

Sea-trial of the welding repair system is carried out in Bohai Sea in China. After
the chamber installation, pipeline alignment, water draining by compressed air
from board, pipeline cutting and pipe ends sealing, a 5G girth weld of sub-sea pipe
is produced, and the welding process is controlled remotely by the welder on the
surface after the welding head had been installed on the pipe by the diver in the
chamber. A series of photos of sea-trial are shown as below.

Fig. 7. The hyperbaric welding chamber Fig. 8. Welding head installation in the
installation chamber

Fig. 9. The welding process controlled remotely Fig. 10. Arc image under high air
pressures

Fig. 11. Girth weld of sub-sea pipe made in the sea-trial

Study on Sub-sea Pipelines Hyperbaric Welding Repair under High Air Pressures 397

6 Conclusions
The research reported here has confirmed that GTAW welding process is capable
of producing good quality welds even at high air pressures. Parameters and ma-
chines have been developed for positional and orbital welding operations. On the
basis of this work, it may be concluded that:
z On the condition of fire-resistant ability and perfect weld pool protection can
be assured in the chamber, GTAW also can be realized under high air pres-
sures.
z Arc voltage feedback plays a key role in GTAW repair of sub-sea pipelines,
including arc ignition, arc length control, and flexibility of repair operation.
z Under high air pressures, arc is stable, and static characteristic curves are
similar to hyperbaric welding process under Argon ambient conditions.
z Under high air pressures, acceptable linear welds and pipe butt welds can be
produced.

Acknowledgement. The authors would like to thank current and former sponsors of the
Underwater Hyperbaric Welding Research programmers: Ministry of Science and Technol-
ogy of the People’s Republic of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and
Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd.

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