Cladding the interior of a straight pipe section
OwnerRandel Brandstrominventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The interior of a straight pipe is clad using a plurality of welding heads. The pipe is carried on support rollers including drive components for rotating the pipe about its axis while holding it fixed against axial movement. There are four welding heads with two carried on a cantilevered support arm of a respective one of a first and a second carriage mounted outside the pipe at opposite ends of the pipe and each movable in a direction longitudinally of the axis of the pipe. The heads are located on the arm at a common angular position at bottom dead center to weld vertically downwardly. The pipe support includes a pair of drive rollers arranged with their axes parallel to the axis of the pipe and adjustable in spacing to change the height of the pipe on the rollers relative to the welding heads.
Claims12
Apparatus for cladding an interior surface of a straight pipe comprising:
- a support for the pipe arranged to hold a longitudinal axis of the pipe horizontal;
- the support including drive components for rotating the pipe about the longitudinal axis;
- a first and a second carriage mounted outside the pipe at opposite ends of the pipe and each movable in a direction longitudinally of the longitudinal axis of the pipe;
- each carriage carrying a respective one of first and second cantilever arms each mounted on the respective carriage and arranged so as to extend axially of the pipe into the interior of the pipe so that longitudinal movement of the respective carriage acts to move the respective arm along the pipe;
- each cantilever arm carrying at least one weld bead coating head for applying a weld bead at a predetermined angular and axial position on the to an interior surface of the pipe;
- such that the interior surface of the pipe is coated by moving the carriages longitudinally and by rotating the pipe as the carriages are moved;
- the first and second carriages being arranged to move the first and second weld bead coating heads respectively from an end of the pipe only to a position at or adjacent a mid-point of the pipe so that each of the first and second weld bead coating head acts to coat only a part of the length of the pipe.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.