Purging for welding
AssigneeSaudi Arabian Oil Company
InventorTARIQ ABDULWAHED ALI ALGHAMDI
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method of purge testing for welding piping, including flowing a purge gas through a test pipe, determining concentration of a gas component in the purge gas discharged from the test pipe, and determining a time period to reach a lower threshold of the concentration. The testing may consider different flow rates, pipe sizes, and inlet/outlet bore sizes.
Claims24
A system for purge testing for welding piping, the system comprising:
- a test pipe comprising a same diameter of the piping to be welded;
- a plurality of pipe end closures to fit on an inlet end of the test pipe and on an outlet end of the test pipe, each pipe end enclosure comprising a bore, wherein the plurality comprises a range of bore sizes;
- an inlet conduit to fluidically couple a gas source to an inlet bore of an inlet pipe-end enclosure disposed on an inlet end of the test pipe, wherein the gas source to discharge purge gas through the inlet conduit and the test pipe;
- a gas analyzer to measure a concentration of a gas component in the purge gas discharged from the test pipe through an outlet bore of an outlet pipe-end enclosure disposed on an outlet end of the test pipe;
- a flow regulator to control a flow rate of the purge gas;
- and
- a timing device to measure a cumulative time of the flow of the purge gas through the test pipe.
A method of purge testing for welding piping, comprising:
- selecting a test pipe from a plurality of test pipes comprising a range of diameters, wherein the test pipe selected comprises a same diameter as piping to be welded;
- flowing a purge gas at a specified flow rate through the test pipe to decrease presence of a gas component in the test pipe;
- determining concentration of the gas component in the purge gas discharged from the test pipe;
- and
- determining a time period of the flowing of the purge gas through the test pipe to reach a lower threshold of the concentration.
A method of purge-time testing for welding alloy piping, comprising:
- performing multiple purge-time tests comprising a first variable comprising diameter of a test pipe, a second variable comprising bore size of pipe end closures installed on each end of the test pipe, and a third variable comprising flow rate of a purge gas through the test pipe and the pipe end closures, wherein performing each test of the multiple purge-time tests further comprises:
- measuring concentration of a gas component in the purge gas discharged from the test pipe;
- and
- measuring a time period for the concentration to drop to a threshold concentration.
A method of performing multiple tests to determine purge time for welding piping, comprising:
- flowing a purge gas at a respective flow rate through a test pipe for each test, the test pipe comprising a same diameter as the piping to be welded;
- determining a concentration of a gas component in the purge gas discharged from the test pipe for each test;
- determining a respective time period to reach a lower threshold of the concentration for each test;
- and
- specifying a purge time for the welding of the piping correlative with a shortest time period of the respective time periods.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.