hi, i`m a bit young (Undergraduate Production Engineer) so please forgive my Language/ technical mistakes.
I have My Graduation Project in Underwater Welding (evaluation of main Differences in Off-Shore/ Dry welding)
I`m from Egypt and have my Project With Egypt`s top Metal forming Professor(Egyptian Welding Society Founder/Chief)
Problem is Simply that the prof. Insists on making Some Experimental "POOL WELDS", The thing we which we tried more than 5 Times With very very Poor Results, I Treid To Search online Resources for Help with that operation but failed, the Prof. himself Couldn`t help us,
Our Projcet Consists mainly of : Dry wellding Specimens, In Pool Specimens, Finally the Main Underwater (3-5 Meters deep In Sea)
I Hope that Some 1 who had Same Experience or Knowledge of such case can offer his Gracious help with tips or a link to online source for that type of welds.
We Tried Welding under Following Condtions:
Weld Technique : SMAW
Power Supply : DC
Specimens : Low carbon Steel Sheets Ranging from 3~12 mm some of them with Backing
Weld Type : V-Groove Butt welds (all)
Electrodes : 6013/ 7018 (almost all specimens) , Broco Coated underwater Electrodes (we tried some of them cause they are too Costy, but when they show no improvement at all we stopped using them)
Polarity : Was`nt fixed we changed it many times
Note also that welder Is In AIR with his Hand too, while only the Arc in water
other main problems were Visiblity (due to welding through two different atmospheres , air -Water)
Besides we followed the AWS (Standard? ) Specimen sizes, amperage,Gap Sizes
i can provide Pictures if anyone is Intersted to help, thanks for any help in advance
Hi Knight it is too interesting for me because I am searching certifcation of underwater welder. I am pn start point nobody knows it in Turkey we have a lot of underwater welder but no certification. I want to know dry welding surround. Could you inform me?
Thanks
When I was in dive school we had to dip our electrodes in melted wax.We kept dipping them into the wax until it had a big build up of wax.
We then used these electrodes to weld underwater.
If I rememnber correctly they were 7018 rods that we used underwater.
good luck to you.
Due to the depth/ pressure that you will be welding at will greatly effect how the "puddle" and arc control, thus your results will be. there are special commercial underwater weling rods made specifically for that reason, to deal w/ ferrite issues from the pressure of the water. I wouldn't do any structural work w/ out these rods. Yes some people just dip a regular rod in a type of wax to seal and protect it for the short term, but there is so much more to it than that. One of my former employers was a commercial dive company out of New Iberia, Lousianna called Global Diving, they have all the hyperbaric chambers both wet and dry and they make there own rods to weld with, look them up and maybe they can help you out, that is unless your their competition. Good Luck, Chris
By franciscocl7 
Date 05-30-2007 17:20
Edited 05-31-2007 02:19
Dear friend I would like to see ur pictures. I am currently working on my Master project and it is about underwater welding. We are using the same electrodes and using a sort of box pool. So the depth is limited, but anyways the problems inmediately arise as the process is performed manually u know. The results so far show some interesting findings regarding porosity. We are also doing bead on plate welds using the electrodes in air but with different degrees of moisture.
What aspect of underwater welding are u addressing?
Regard
FFCL
For wet welding what you're going to find is that if the depth is less than 3 foot, then you're going to have a more difficult time trying to weld. Deeper than 3 foot offsets the amount of gas produced by the rod. If you dip your own rods then you're going to find that the maximum depth is going to be around the 80 foot level, depending on the rod that you're using. Are you pushing or dragging the rod? Dragging the rod is the preferd method for wet welding. Also what is the amps that you're running? Usually 145 to 165 amps is the norm for 0 to 130 foot water depth. If you have any question specific my email is c_welch@bellsouth.net
Charles Welch
