Metallurgical and Materials Eng.

Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

By:
Engy Ibrahim Khalil.
Wesam Muhammed Sadek.
Asmaa muhammed Rabie.
Omnia Ismail Abd-Elgawad.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

Content:
1. What is narrow gap welding?
2. The joint preparation.
3. Processes common features.
4. The techniques.
5. The equipment.
6. Advantages.
7. Disadvantages.
8. Applications.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 What is narrow gap welding?

• The term “narrow gap” welding is used to describe a group of processes

developments which have been specifically designed to reduce weld
metal volume in butt welds, and make welding of thick sections more
economically.

• Narrow gap techniques have been applied when welding using

submerged arc welding (SAW), gas shielded metal arc welding
(MIG/MAG, GMAW) and tungsten inert gas welding (TIG, GTAW)
processes.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The joint preparation:

• In fillet welds:
The possibility of reduction of weld size depends on:
i. The design.

• In butt welds:
The possibility of reduction of weld size depends on:
i. Modification of the joint configurations.
ii. Changing the process.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The joint preparation:

• In conventional “V” preparation:

As: Square the thickness

increases.

The joint volume &

The weld completion time
increases.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The joint preparation:

• By decreasing the angle of preparation

The volume of the weld metal & the joint completion rate decreases.

• If a narrow parallel sided gap is used, the difference become significant,

particularly on thicker sections.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The joint preparation:

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The joint preparation:

• The effect of modification:

i. Reduce the weld filler metal & weld completion time.
ii. Reduce the distortion.
iii. Gives more uniform joint properties.

 The mechanical properties of narrow gab joints are better than those
achieved with conventional V butt configurations.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 Processes common features:

• It use a special joint configurations:

The narrow is almost parallel edges, so it uses joint preparations with
small, included angles, typically in the range 2-20°, to compensate the
distortion of the joining members.

• It require a special welding head / equipment.

• It require arc length control / seam tracking.

• It require modified consumables.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GTAW:
i. Hot wire method.
ii. Double shield system.
iii. Oscillation method.
• GMAW:
i. Reduced gap method.
• SAW:
i. Single pass method.
ii. Multipass per layer method.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GTAW:
i. Hot wire method:

electric currents passing

through filler wires increase
the deposition rate.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GTAW:
i. Hot wire method:

Hot wire narrow gap weld. One pass per layer.

Wall thickness 180 mm, base material: low alloy steel P91.
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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GTAW:
ii. Double shield system:
Used to supply center and shield gas. The center gas cools the arc
column to converge the arc, increasing the electric current density.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GTAW:
iii. Oscillation method:

In this method, a tungsten

electrode is mounted at a slant
on the torch shaft
while the shaft is twisted
to increase penetration
into the groove walls.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• GMAW:
i. Reduced gap angle method:

• Reduces the weld metal volume by more than 20%.

• The pipe position is fixed with its longitudinal axis in the horizontal
plane and welding must therefore be carried out in the 5G position
(i.e. with the welding system rotating around the pipe.
• This is achieved by using a tractor equipped with an oscillator and
typical operating conditions.
• Systems such as this have been used successfully for welding pipe
diameters of 600-1500 mm with wall thickness of 8-22 mm.
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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• SAW:
i. Single pass method:

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• SAW:
ii. Multipass per layer method:

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Techniques:

• SAW:
ii. Multipass per layer method:

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Equipment:

• It’s possible to use standard automatic welding equipment with some

processes with thicker sections(over 100mm):

1. Power sources.
2. Wire feed system.
3. Torches.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Equipment:

• The torches:
i. The “wiggly tungsten” model
was able to overcome some of
the earlier problems and provide
good sidewall fusion.
ii. These torches were designed for
various depths in the joint and
could be changed during
welding process.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The Equipment:

• The torches:
The torch height and it’s position
relative of the sidewalls of the
gap must be maintained at
predetermined value and this
usually entails some forms of
seam tracking and height sensing
system

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 Advantages:

• Require less weld metal and less welding time to fill.

• The process offers better economy for welding of thick materials
(generally over 50mm thick).
• Lower weld joint volume & Minimum joint preparation.
• Decrease the tendency to shrinkage.
• Low angular distortion.
• Excellent quality values of the weld metals & the HAZ due to low heat
input.
• Good mechanical properties.
• High weld productivity.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 Disadvantages:

• Require specialised equipment.

• Increase the risk of imperfections at large wall thicknesses.
• It is difficult to remove any defects when detected.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The lack of sidewall fusion:

1. Occurs when there is no fusion between

the weld metal and the surfaces of the base
plate.
2. Caused by:
i. Poor welding techniques.
ii. The use of a very wide weld joint.
iii. Very low travel speed and attempting to
make too large weld in a single pass.

3. Occurs in:
Welding aluminum, the common cause of
this type of defect is the presence of
aluminum oxide. 24
Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The lack of sidewall fusion:

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 The risk of lack of sidewall fusion can be reduced by :

1. Using two electrodes in tandem with each electrode oriented so that a weld
bead is directed towards each sidewall (applicable to SAW and MIG/MAG
processes)
2. Using an electrode that has been bent into a wave form (for MIG/MAG
welding). This should make the arc move from side to side across the joint
3. Using two electrodes that are twisted around each other to oscillate the arc
(applicable to MIG/MAG welding)
4. Using an angled contact tip, which automatically aims the electrode at one
sidewall and then the other (applicable to MIG/MAG welding)
5. Use of seam tracking to ensure alignment of the arc with the sidewall

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 Applications:

1. Turbine shafts.
2. Reactor piping.
3. Nozzles.
4. Steam generator replacement.
5. High pressure headers.
6. Duplex piping.
7. Power plants.

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Narrow Gap Welding

 Applications:

Power plants:

• Automated GTAW narrow gap technology

is now sufficiently developed that the next
generation of power plants are being
designed to incorporate this technology.
• And as a result of this advance
we can achieve :
1. High quality weld deposits with
excellent properties.
2. Reducing heat input, shrinkage and
residual stresses.
3. Reduce the cost of components and
assemblies of the most critical parts
of the power plants. 28
Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016
 Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Department
Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

Thanks For Attention

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Welding Metallurgy 4th Year Students 2015/2016