Question about pressure vessels from an old timer

By roveron Date 08-06-2009 21:01

I've been out of the industry for some time now, but used to do a lot of piping work in chemical plants, steam lines and other pipe welding.
When I was doing it, the high pressure piping was typically 6010 or TIG root with 7018 filler and cap. I'm hearing that it's pretty commonly MIG now. Any truth to that?
Thanks,
Tom

By robgreg1978 (**)

Date 08-07-2009 23:27

I mainly work in refineries and some chemical plants. Almost 99 % of pipe is gtaw root and hot then smaw 7018 fill and cap. All of the vessels we have been building are smaw all the way then backgouge the root and weld up. We never use mig guns but I'm sure some companies might. This is also all field work we don't have a shop.

By roveron Date 08-08-2009 00:24

Cool, thanks. Yeah, field work was what I was talking about, not in a shop.
Cheers,
Tom

By JeremyW83 (***)

Date 08-08-2009 03:22

I haven't heard of anybody using MIG but I know that Fluor is using GTAW and FCAW on their chrome in power plants now. But on everything else it is SMAW and GTAW or a combination of both.

By Shane Feder (****)

Date 08-08-2009 09:55

roveron,
Haven't heard of GMAW being used in the field but there is a huge amount of GMAW/SMAW, GMAW/FCAW & GMAW/SAW done on pipework in the shop (a lot of STT) for installation on site.
Regards,
Shane

By roveron Date 08-09-2009 13:18

Thanks for all the replies. It didn't sound right to me when I told it, but like I said, I've been out of it a while (still do a fair bit of welding for myself and friends) and was wondering if times had changed more than I thought.

Tom