Arc Weld Join Investigator

The Are Weld Join Investigator will scan the join between two pieces of piping to produce dimensional data that will aid the welding of the join. The idea for the project came from ISOTEK, a Leeds firm who lay and maintain oil pipes in the North sea. When, for example, a section of piping needs to be replaced a join must be welded to secure the new piping to the old. The welding, using an arc, must be done very accurately. Information is needed about the nature of the join to be made. The information required and the welding of the join cannot be done by divers at deep sea levels (for example 200m). Also there is a demand for very accurate welding (in the order of millimetres) which cannot be achieved manually. Only robots may be able to perform within these parameters. The project aims to use image processing techniques to find the exact geometry of the pipes. A dry run is performed whereby a video camera follows the join around the circumference of the pipe. A frame grabber collects complete images at a set rate (for example one per second) and makes the image data available for computer processing. The processing extracts dimensional information from the image data, and by using this information parameters may be set for the weld of the join (for example arc distance/angle from the pipe, arc current/heat intensity)