"Stud Welding" Process for fastening components in the naval sector

Managing Institution: FAPEU
Funder: PETROBRAS
Start: 11/08/2021
Validity: until 09/08/2024
Duration: 36 months
Total Value: 3,436,997.19

Summary

In maintenance activities during scheduled downtimes, UMS campaigns, and major interventions, difficulties in moving loads during the removal and reinstallation of valves, spools, straight sections, and equipment, among others, were verified. In these activities, techniques such as aerial displacement with several hoists on a derrick, pallet jacks, sliding on the floor, and rolling boards on scaffolding tubes have been used, but in some cases, they end up involving high risks and demanding more time for the movement. To simplify load movement, monorails, rails, and lifting eyes can be used, fastened through threaded studs, welded to the platform structures. Similarly, components can be fastened in the same way, with threaded studs, to bulkheads, floors, tank roofs, deckhouses, etc. Currently, the stud welding process uses a more versatile procedure, known as "Stud Welding" (SW). This is the procedure that allows the welding of studs where the stud itself is used as an electrode, and it can be welded in a matter of a few seconds, resulting in low heating of the base metal and allowing the rapid execution of a load test using manual hydraulic/mechanical systems. In this context, and considering the growing technical-scientific relevance of this type of application, this project aims at the careful and in-depth study, as well as the improvement of stud welding techniques, along with the development of methodologies for fastening these components and analyzing results. It aims, therefore, at the development of technological innovation for application and proper welding procedures.

General Objective

To carefully study commercially available stud welding processes as a way to disseminate existing knowledge and conceive new perspectives for welding, monitoring, and inspection of welded studs. It is intended to idealize the aggregated techniques in the development of customized flexible equipment for stud welding, creating systematics, rules, and criteria for fastening components, focusing on increasing the reliability and versatility of the process.