OXY-ACETYLENE REGULATORS IN SUBFREEZING ENVIRONMENTS

By Perky Date 03-02-2007 04:28

I am a welding student in North-Central Costal California, near the Santa Cruz Mountains.
We are currently experiencing rather cold weather for these parts with snow at seriously low elevations.
Due to the recent cold snap, as we were watching a demonstration on gas cutting delivered by our associate instructor, he mentioned that the regulator will tend to sweat as the bottle pressure is relieved [natually...].

It was mentioned that the diaphragm will tend to freeze and lead to a very dangerous condition if the temperature of the apparattus drops too low from the pressure drop combining with the ambient temperature.

The question arose: "What are the strategies for keeping your regulator from freezing up in sub-freezing environments, such as winter pipe welding?"

[You will notice the Alaska pipeline is in need of repair... Emergency pipeline repairs would also call for such an environment.]

...Anybody?

We'll be reading your answers next week.

-Perky

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 03-02-2007 05:26

A few weeks ago there was a thread on CO2 regulators freezing, Suggestions from directing the engine exhaust to using a light bulb, maybee You could find that thread.

By Sourdough (****)

Date 03-07-2007 23:42

There are regulators made with built in heaters. These units can cost 500 bucks apiece. My theory: if it's that cold, it aint getting cut! I was born and raised in Alaska, and have fought cold weather all my life. I'm over it!!

By Kix

Date 03-09-2007 17:36

You should only get sweating of the gauges if your running extremly high flow rates or you have a leak somewhere. You will get ice on regulators in 100deg heat if you have a leak or are flowing extremly high flow rates for an extended period of time. On oxy fuel guages you probably have a leak if your seeing sweating and i would bet it's on the oxygen gauge. I'd say you would see standard gauges on the pipeline in alaska.

By MDG Custom Weld (***)

Date 03-10-2007 14:34

Kix, I agree with you..to a point. Yes, for the average torch user that cuts and heats up here and there, some sweating might be indicative of a leak. But sweating is not a function of flow rate as much as it's a function of volume. When the volume of gas is very high, like if 2 or 3 lines are run from one regulator, freeze up is common when the ambient air temps are cold. When we service our bulk tanks, we run our entire plant from a 12 pack bank of 98/2 mix. We average 8-10 cfm of gas volume, which is 540 cfh of flow into the main head line. No matter if the air is 95, or 25 degrees, it takes about 15 minutes for the regulator to start icing on the outer shell and out feed hoses. Even in the middle of summer, we always put a halogen light near the regulator to keep it from freezing up.