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Chris Punshon and Allan Sanderson TWI Ltd, Cambridge, UK Paper presented at 7th International Conference on Beam Technology, Halle, Germany, 17-19 April 2007.
1 Introduction
Electron beam (EB) welding offers many advantages for thick-section fabrication, particularly when applied to large structures, where significant savings in both costs and time are anticipated because of the rapid joining rate achievable. Examples of this include the use of EB welding for the future fabrication of structures such as monopile foundations for offshore, wind-turbines, Figure 1. Typically, these are tubular structures of 3-6 metres diameter and >60m metres in length fabricated from rolled (see Figure 2) and welded constructional steel with thicknesses in excess of 80mm.
Fig.2. Section of wind turbine foundation being rolled from thick steel plate ( Courtesy Dillinger) Appropriate application of EB welding in a single pass is anticipated to lead to a cost and time saving in excess of 50% when compared with more conventional fabrication practice making use of submerged-arc-welding (SAW). Similar savings can be shown for structures fabricated in thick section austenitic stainless steel and nickel alloys where the cost of welding consumables and filler wire also become significant. To date, however, the full potential of the EB process has not been realised commercially for thick section welding and large structures because of restrictions associated with working at high-vacuum, with the entire structure to be welded enclosed in a vacuum envelope. TWI has demonstrated that operating the EB process in the pressure range 0.1-10mbar, so-called 'Reduced-Pressure', in preference to high-vacuum (~10 -3 mbar), offers the possibility of eliminating the need for a vacuum chamber by permitting the practical use of local sealing and pumping on a large structure. In adopting the Reduced Pressure Electron Beam (RPEB) process variant, when compared to traditional high-vacuum operation, problems of achieving adequate sealing on the component are much reduced and the effect of weld pool emissions and outgassing of the component on the gun performance are eliminated. To date, however, RPEB welding has only been applied industrially in a few specific cases. It is envisaged that many more industrial applications of the process could be promoted, and the true viability demonstrated, by the further development of practical local sealing devices. This is currently the subject of a development project at TWI. In addition a system has been developed at TWI which allows transmission of high power beams into air at atmospheric pressure. This system is capable of welding steel and copper of thicknesses greater than 25mm at speeds approaching 2000mm/min in a single pass and has recently been configured to permit pulsed operation. This paper will describe the development of local vacuum systems for field deployment of Reduced Pressure EB welding and the optimisation of the Non-Vacuum EB welding process illustrating the potential for using both methods in cost-effective fabrication of large structures.
maintain a vacuum pressure in the gun electrode enclosure of ~10 -6 mbar whilst the beam was delivered into air at atmospheric pressure or a reduced pressure of ~1mbar. Where the beam exits the column an overpressure helium gas feed can be used as an option which reduces scattering of the beam and provides a background welding atmosphere of helium which assists in prevention of weld pool oxidation.
Fig.3. Schematic representation of Reduced Pressure electron gun column With this development came the possibility of working either with big chambers pumped to a coarse vacuum pressure, thus minimising the pump-down time, system cost and operating sensitivity, or as in the work reported here, with local seals and pumping applied to weld joints on work pieces too large to be contained entirely in a vacuum envelope. This concept was tested and demonstrated successfully in the laboratory at TWI for application to offshore pipelay of large-diameter, thick-walled pipes, Figure 4 and illustrated that welds could be made in this pressure regime with consistent high quality and significantly improved process tolerance when compared to conventional high-vacuum EB welding.
Fig.4. Local vacuum Reduced Pressure EB welding system manufactured for offshore pipelay In particular, for the working distance range 50-500mm, welding performance was shown to be independent of working distance for a fixed-focus setting, Figure 5 and a target pressure of
1mbar was selected as the best compromise for Reduced Pressure operation in terms of simplification of vacuum engineering and reliable welding performance. The system was shown to operate well in the pressure range 0.1-10mbar.
Fig.5. Transverse sections from RPEB welds in API 5L X 65 C-Mn steel pipe of 25mm (10.75"diameter) and 41mm wall thickness (28" diameter) made with gun to work distance of 270mm and 50mm, respectively, and otherwise identical welding parameters at a nominal pressure of 1mbar To date, the process has been applied successfully to steels, stainless steels, nickel alloys, copper alloys, as well as aluminium and titanium alloys with similar results to those achieved with the high-vacuum process variant, and has exhibited significantly greater process tolerance in terms of material preparation details and system reliability. This is illustrated by the example in Figure 6 below in which 304L type stainless steel of 80mm thickness was welded at ~1mbar pressure with a 5mm mismatch and joint gap of ~1mm. The welding speed was 200mm/min with a beam power of 35kW.
Fig.6. Transverse section from an EB weld in 80mm thick 304 L type stainless steel produced at ~1mbar pressure and deliberate mismatch of 5mm
The ability to work at so-called Reduced Pressure greatly improves the potential reliability of local seals and local vacuum pumping as the need for high levels of cleanliness and sophisticated pumping and sealing technology are eliminated. The TWI system employs steel brushes as the primary seal, Figure 7, 8, and with two differential pumping stages a pressure level of less than 1mbar can be achieved reliably on plate with a typical hot rolled surface finish.
Fig.8. Reduced Pressure local vacuum head and 45mm thick plate With this arrangement and a single stage roughing pump pumping each stage it was established that a pressure of less than 1mbar could be achieved reliably in less than 10 seconds pumping time and could be maintained whilst traversing a stainless steel plate with a weld bead on the surface. Notably the pressure level was observed to improve when traversing the surface of the plate, Figure 9.
Fig.9. Pumping curves for two stage reduced pressure local vacuum head showing static behaviour improvement in pressure with motion of the head
Fig.10. Schematic representation of local, mobile vacuum seal for RPEB welding of thick walled tubular component on-site
Fig.11. Schematic representation of locally sealed vacuum chamber for RPEB welding of thick walled tubular component on-site
that accompanies the greater degree of beam scattering that occurs at atmospheric pressure. However, the developments described below have significantly improved this situation. [6] As with RPEB welding, NVEB welding potentially offers many benefits over and above those of in-chamber EBW and laser beam welding, notably elimination of the need for a vacuum chamber and a single pass thick section welding capability. Unfortunately beam spreading occurs, as the electrons collide with gas at atmospheric pressure and particularly with metal ions from the weld pool; this causes severe scattering of the beam. This limits not only the weld depth achievable, but also the viable gun column to work piece distance. Typically the working distance has to be restricted to 30mm or less, and the maximum penetration achievable in steel is less than 50mm. Attempts to weld thicker sections invokes excessive weld width and weld defects.
Fig.12. Weld penetration vs. welding speed for 200kV non-vacuum beam in low alloy steel and OFHC copper One new approach that promises to substantially increase penetration performance of NVEB is the use of pulsed beams. As in the case of high vacuum EBW, it has been found that penetration range can be increased for a given average power level by using high peak power levels. In a recent TWI research programme, it has been shown that penetration depth in steel can be increased by 50% combined with a corresponding reduction in weld width, particularly in the vicinity of the top bead. Pulsing also appears to alter the solidification mechanism that often leads to solidification cracks in deep NVEB welds. Figure 13 shows a compact 100kW NVEB gun column that incorporates a pulsing facility.
Fig.13. TWI's 100kW Non-Vacuum electron gun Figure 14 shows a melt run made in the flat position in low alloy steel using a pulsed nonvacuum electron beam. It will be noted that the fusion zone is almost parallel sided with a wellrounded tip. Apart from minor pores the fusion zone was sound. The run was made at an average power of 26.3kW at a welding speed of 480mm/min.
Fig.14. Flat position, 22mm deep melt run made in low alloy steel with a pulsed NVEB beam
4 Concluding remarks
The ability to weld thick section material (25-150mm) in a single pass has been one of the driving forces behind the development of high power electron beam welding systems with potential for high productivity and high accuracy fabrication. The requirement to operate in high vacuum has precluded the use of the process in the fabrication of very large structures as the construction and operation of large vacuum chambers can be difficult to justify economically. The possibility of having portable local vacuum equipment which can be delivered to site and operated on a lease/hire basis improves practicality and economics of thick section EB welding. Operation at Reduced Pressure where process reliability and performance is, if anything, better than at high vacuum make this now a practical proposition and work is currently underway to manufacture an industrial system which will realise this opportunity. Similarly the possibility to operate at atmospheric pressure with an non-vacuum system is equally attractive particularly where thinner materials are concerned (i.e. <50mm).With recent developments in beam pulsing and gun configuration it is likely that high speed welding of even thicker materials will be realised at atmospheric pressure in the near future.
5 Bibliography
1. Meyer E and Dorn L: 'Electron beam welding at different pressures'. Welding and Metal Fabrication, March 1970. 2. Punshon C S, Sanderson A and Belloni A: 'Reduced pressure electron beam welding for steel pipelines'. 6th International Conference on Welding and Melting by Electron and Laser Beams. Toulon, June 1998. Vol.1, pp.363-371. 3. Schumacher B W, Lowry J F and Smith R C: 'High power beams in the atmosphere' 4th International Seminar Long Island, NY, April 1976 by Universal Technology Corporation; 1976. ISBN 0 912426 055, 31pp.
4. Anderl, P, Kappelsberger and Steigerwald K. H: 'Electron beam welding of large size work pieces with mobile vacuum unit under nearly practical conditions'. Proc. Int. Technology conf. DVS 63 Essen, May 1980. 5. Yamamoto M et al: 'Study on local vacuum for low alloy steel'. IIW Doc. IV-581-92. 6. Sanderson A. 'Four Decades of Electron Beam Development at TWI' IIW Doc 1770-06, Welding in the World, IIW publication, Jan/Feb. 2007.