Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

hey fella's, basicly i'm a boilermaker by trade, have worked on quite a few high profile jobs, the new docklands ferris wheel is one, repairs on the MCG retractable roof, desalination plant and working in power station boilers, after abit of interested in what i do in the wasteland i thought i might post up a few pic's on what i'm doing at the moment.

basicly i'm "spooling" and welding pipe for ESSO, an offshore gas company with 20 odd rig's in the bass strait, the pipe's on these rig's are replaced every 10 year's for safety reasons, so we're making up some new pipe, we welding with TIG for the smaller stuff under 120mm nominal bore (inside diameter of the pipe) and under 8mm wall thickness, anything bigger and we use a special MIG machine made by lincoln weld called an STT (surface tension transfer), basically it pulses the amperage from a lower background setting, to a high peak, the idea being to be able to weld faster then with a stick welder (which is the old hat way of welding big pipe) but with much lower heat input then a MIG as well as almost zero spatter, excesive heat input will cook the aditive's out of the steel making it brittle and prone to cracking, so weld procedure's are strictly adhered to.

these baby's are worth 14k each without a wire feed unit

P1090604.jpg

and another 3k per wire feed

P1090605.jpg

this is an STT weld on the 300mm pipe, the weld's on the 80mm branch are done with TIG

P1090607.jpg

this is the machine we use for TIG, they made by fronius and are worth around 9k each, they do standard and pulse MIG (they pulse from full power to nothing, unlike the STT which pulses from full power to background power, so these are no good for the pipe weld's) TIG welding and stick, and you need to be able to fly an F16 fighter jet to set them up, over 100 separably adjustable parameter's

P1090609.jpg

this is a spool we knocked up in about 8 hours (tacking, not welding), this one bolt's to the header of a compressor, the upright section's with the flanges are 200mm nominal bore pipe with a 12.7mm wall, these are not allowed to be drifted into place when being installed due to vibration issue which can damage the 5 million dollar compressor, so the tolerance once welded has to be spot on, each weld shrink's around 2-2.5mm when welded depending on the root gap which has to be taken into account during fabrication, the section at the front with 6 weld's will shrink 14mm after welding, talking about those flanges, the clamping face is 110mm thick 1.25% cro-mo steel, each flange has 20 38mm high tensile bolts tightened to 1200 NM each, clamping force is 16 tones per join.

P1090606.jpg

this is what we use to cut the pipe to length and bevel then at the same time, the procedure for this job is a 25 degree bevel on each side of the weld

P1090608.jpg

a few completed spool ready to weld

P1090610.jpg

as the pipe's need to hold 1700 PSI of pressure, and the content's is natural gas making it incredibly dangerous if a weld fails while the gas rig is in operation each weld is gammer ray tested and X ray tested to detect imperfection's in the weld metal such as porosity, inclusions and lack of fusion, each test cost's around $1000, we weld these on a "butt rate" which means we get paid per weld, with any repair's getting completed in our own time and we cover the cost of the extra gammer and x ray, we get $120 per weld, and a good welder can do a weld in 35 minutes, good welder's get in 15 a day

There's a good chance that we supplied the pipe and fittings for this.

I'm a bit surprised at the unprotected RF's on the weld necks, you guys must be good at keeping things separated (unlike some peanuts out there).

It's good to see you're proud of your work, well done.

That machine, which I assume is an oxy torch for pipes looks AWESOME!

Everything else is pretty darn cool, especially knowing how much you're going to shrink a pipe by!

dead on thumbsup.gif just an oxy with a swivel head for the bevel and the chain and gear arrangement to keep in traveling around the pipe, worth around 2k it's amazing how much some of these thing's cost

There's a good chance that we supplied the pipe and fittings for this.

I'm a bit surprised at the unprotected RF's on the weld necks, you guys must be good at keeping things separated (unlike some peanuts out there).

It's good to see you're proud of your work, well done.

if that's the case then tell whoever machines the bloody things we only want 1mm landing on the flanges, grinding to back is a pain in the ass

if that's the case then tell whoever machines the bloody things we only want 1mm landing on the flanges, grinding to back is a pain in the ass

As we're a distributor, we have to take what's given to us. Special requests bump up the costs somewhat and it's not something that our customers wish to bear.

What this means unfortunately is that you, the fabricator, have to use your magic touch to make things right.

The only people who get what they want is Woodside, but believe me, they pay for it. Just one of the fittings (header tank with 4 test rings) that passed through my projects warehouse last week cost them over $180k, including air freight and testing.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • No, your formula is arse backwards. Mine is totally different to yours, and is the one I said was bang on at 50 and 150. I'll put your data into Excel (actually it already is, chart it and fit a linear fit to it, aiming to make it evenly wrong across the whole span. But not now. Other things to do first.
    • God damnit. The only option I actually have in the software is the one that is screenshotted. I am glad that I at least got it right... for those two points. Would it actually change anything if I chose/used 80C and 120C as the two points instead? My brain wants to imagine the formula put into HPtuners would be the same equation, otherwise none of this makes sense to me, unless: 1) The formula you put into VCM Scanner/HPTuners is always linear 2) The two points/input pairs are only arbitrary to choose (as the documentation implies) IF the actual scaling of the sensor is linear. then 3) If the scaling is not linear, the two points you choose matter a great deal, because the formula will draw a line between those two points only.
    • Nah, that is hella wrong. If I do a simple linear between 150°C (0.407v) and 50°C (2.98v) I get the formula Temperature = -38.8651*voltage + 165.8181 It is perfectly correct at 50 and 150, but it is as much as 20° out in the region of 110°C, because the actual data is significantly non-linear there. It is no more than 4° out down at the lowest temperatures, but is is seriously shit almost everywhere. I cannot believe that the instruction is to do a 2 point linear fit. I would say the method I used previously would have to be better.
    • When I said "wiring diagram", I meant the car's wiring diagram. You need to understand how and when 12V appears on certain wires/terminals, when 0V is allowed to appear on certain wires/terminals (which is the difference between supply side switching, and earth side switching), for the way that the car is supposed to work without the immobiliser. Then you start looking for those voltages in the appropriate places at the appropriate times (ie, relay terminals, ECU terminals, fuel pump terminals, at different ignition switch positions, and at times such as "immediately after switching to ON" and "say, 5-10s after switching to ON". You will find that you are not getting what you need when and where you need it, and because you understand what you need and when, from working through the wiring diagram, you can then likely work out why you're not getting it. And that will lead you to the mess that has been made of the associated wires around the immobiliser. But seriously, there is no way that we will be able to find or lead you to the fault from here. You will have to do it at the car, because it will be something f**ked up, and there are a near infinite number of ways for it to be f**ked up. The wiring diagram will give you wire colours and pin numbers and so you can do continuity testing and voltage/time probing and start to work out what is right and what is wrong. I can only close my eyes and imagine a rat's nest of wiring under the dash. You can actually see and touch it.
×
×
  • Create New...