Dry welding is carried out in chamber sealed around the structure to be welded. The chamber is filled with a gas (commonly helium containing 0.5 bar of oxygen) at the prevailing pressure. The habitat is sealed onto the pipeline and filled with a breathable mixture of helium and oxygen, at or slightly above the ambient pressure at which the welding is to take place. This method produces high-quality weld joints that meet X- ray and code requirements. The gas tungsten arc welding process is employed for this process. The area under the floor of the Habitat is open to water. Thus the welding is done in the dry but at the hydrostatic pressure of the sea water surrounding the Habitat.
Hyperbaric Chamber
(Source: National Geography Mega Structures episode Super Pipeline)
There is a risk to the welder/diver of electric shock. Precautions include achieving adequate electrical insulation of the welding equipment, shutting off the electricity supply immediately the arc is extinguished, and limiting the open-circuit voltage of MMA (SMA) welding sets. Secondly, hydrogen and oxygen are produced by the arc in wet welding.
Precautions must be taken to avoid the build-up of pockets of gas, which are potentially explosive. The other main area of risk is to the life or health of the welder/diver from nitrogen introduced into the blood steam during exposure to air at increased pressure. Precautions include the provision of an emergency air or gas supply, stand-by divers, and decompression chambers to avoid nitrogen narcosis following rapid surfacing after saturation diving.
For the structures being welded by wet underwater welding, inspection following welding may be more difficult than for welds deposited in air. Assuring the integrity of such underwater welds may be more difficult, and there is a risk that defects may remain undetected.
Advantages of Dry Welding
- Welder/Diver Safety – Welding is performed in a chamber, immune to ocean currents and marine animals. The warm, dry habitat is well illuminated and has its own environmental control system (ECS).
- Good Quality Welds – This method has ability to produce welds of quality comparable to open air welds because water is no longer present to quench the weld and H2 level is much lower than wet welds.
- Surface Monitoring – Joint preparation, pipe alignment, NDT inspection, etc. are monitored visually.
- Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) – NDT is also facilitated by the dry habitat environment.
Disadvantages of Dry Welding
- The habitat welding requires large quantities of complex equipment and much support equipment on the surface. The chamber is extremely complex.
- Cost of habitat welding is extremely high and increases with depth. Work depth has an effect on habitat welding. At greater depths, the arc constricts and corresponding higher voltages are required. The process is costly – a $ 80000 charge for a single weld job. One cannot use the same chamber for another job, if it is a different one.
Source:
edarikahiki 