Robotic Pipe Welding System

Robotic Pipe Welding System

One of the largest metal pipe manufacturers in the world approached Finearc Systems for an automation solution for welding a metal tab to a pipe to be integrated into a running pipe mill 4 miles long. The company was facing a severe shortage of skilled welders in addition to the added time and cost involved in the manual welding process. Repeatable quality was also a concern.

Challenges

To weld a pipe tab in a cycle time of 10 minutes that is a considerably stiff industry standard
Welding needed to be carried out in a running mill condition, that put tremendous pressure on the skilled welded to complete the job in the available time
Since the pipe length and welding was very long and handling very cumbersome, detecting the proper weld joint location posed difficulties in addition to gap and orientation

The Finearc Solution

Finearc studied the problem in detail after multiple customer visits ad discussions to zero in on a fully hands-free integrated solution. For this, Finearc proposed a fully automated robotic welding system that included the welding robot, power supply, seam finding intelligent sensors and automated pick and place of the child part that worked in synchronization with the entire mill operation. All technical requirements of the application such as clamping, butting, weld position detection and weld strengths were addressed using advanced technologies.

Results

All customer requirements were met. These included a reduction in the cycle time (achieved was 6 minutes as against a 10-minute target) that resulted in considerable productivity increase in a stress-free environment. The robotic welding system operator ended up having more time on his hands to oversee other operations that needed attention. Welding no longer remained a bottleneck in the plant, and skilled welders ended up being deployed in other areas that needed manual intervention.

Robotic Pipe Welding System