Provided - Keppel Offshore & Marine

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATIONProcess for welding of flangesThe pipe spools fabricationprocess begins with theoperator selecting the desiredspools to fabricate. He willthen programme the machineto import the relevant datafiles from the engineeringdepartment through a sharednetwork drive. Subsequently,the machine is activated forfabrication.Once activated, the roboticwelding machine will start topick up the flanges from thematerial rack and align them tothe pipe using a vision cameraand an 8-point position sensor.Once the alignment is done,the flanges will be fitted andtacked to the pipe using thetwo arms of the machine.Finally, the flanges are weldedto the pipe using all fourrobotic arms simultaneously.1. During the pipe spool fabrication process,the operator selects the desired spool tofabricate and imports relevant data files tothe machine to activate it for the productionjob2. Robotic arms pick up flanges from thematerial rack3. The flanges are aligned to the pipe using a vision camera (left) and an 8-point positionsensor (right)4. The flanges are then fitted and tacked to thepipe using two of the robotic arms5. Finally, the flanges are welded to the pipeusing all four robotic arms simultaneouslyOffshoreMarine March – April 201317