any one experienced in real cold weather welds

[rory1]

hi all,

i have landed a job working as a fitter in a research station on the antarctic ice shelf for 18 months.

i have been looking into the methods of cold weather weld prep, pre heat post heat, rods etc but cant find a lot of information, anyone here have any experience of this kind of work, typical temperatures in summer never get above zero with winter temperatures sometimes reaching -50 c, humidity shouldnt be too much of a problem due to the antartic being the dryest continent.

i should imagine there will be WPS's for most jobs, so im just looking for a bit of background information.

regards,

rory

 

[blenkie1]

Coldest place I have worked at was British gas research station at Spadeadam. Tempertures had dropped to -15c during the night. We were building a scaled gas pumping rig at the time and most of the time we were just trying to keep warm beside the welders!! The problem was we were doing long vertical welds and hardly moving. Tropical really to what you will be doing. Will you be able to do some posts when you are there?

 

[chunkolini]

Rory
Havent a clue. But I am insanely jealous.

Good luck, keep in touch and dont go too crazy.

Have you seen Werner Herzogs film about antarctica? Encounters at the end o the world. Beautiful, intellectual and hilarious.

Chunko'.

 

[Lewis Medlock]

any one experienced in real cold weather welds

nope but there's some info on electrodes if you want it.

http://www.twiprofessional.com/content/jk84.html

forget all that AWS nonsense and have a look at EN499 for MMA electrodes

the 'E' denotes a covered electrode...

the second set of values gives the impact value at a given temperature -50c is '5' and -60c is '6' @47J

so... E465 B225 etc etc = good for impact values at -60c

 

[Rubber Duck]

LUCKY THINGY-MA-JIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's something I would realy love to do just for the experience and to say I've been there and done that (have a young family so won't be able to for a very long time if ever).


Is it the British Antartic Survey?

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/index.php

Hope you enjoy it!!!

 

[rory1]

blenk,
i should be able to do a few posts when im there, i will do my best!

chunko,
have not seen werner herzogs film but i shall look out for it, the day after i went to the interview i watched 'the thing' on the telly. im glad they dont have dogs there anymore.

rubber duck,
thats the one.

 

[PTvor]

Why not get in touch with your new employers, or the British Antartic Survey and ask them for the email of someone who has been there and done it?

There's nothing like getting the real info from someone who's actually done it. You might find there are all sorts of quirks to watch out for, like for no good reason, you can't get welding gloves, so take plenty.

 

[rory1]

i have a month or so of pottering about, doing a bit of training and meeting the people im goint to be working with before i go so im sure i will be able to get in touch with some 'old hands'

i was thinking that i best get a new standard (non-auto) screen because the speedgals batterys are not going to last long in the cold!

 

[mike os]

jammy git

we want lolts of updates

 

[mrcharly]

An acquaintance of mine is heading down to Antarctica to work as a fitter - think he's already down there. Look out for someone called Dean. If it's a right miserable ******, it's the bloke I know.

 

[Drains]

Good job Rory! A mate of mine's going Antarctic way too. If you come across a funny wee fella, called Pete, from Edinburgh, give him a big hello from me would you? You can't miss him - he's only got one hand.

Si

 

[rory1]

will do, i guess he might be working for morrisons contractors?

 

[volition82]

No experience of welding in the cold but i've done a bit of pre-heating to a set procedure. Simple stuff really, had a heating nozzle for the oxy acetylene, heat evenly to the temp set out in the wps, then weld. You check you've got the right work heat with a temp pen (a bit like a crayon) which melts at a certain temp. Post heat is obviously a reverse, when the pen won't melt at the predetermined heat you heat the work piece until it does.

I would imagine you'll have wps's for nearly everything with as much as possible made inside so it's nut and bolted together outside. Good luck with it all, i'm sure it will be a great experience, something very few people get to experience.

 

[3Rs]

Rory,

Technical Al may be able to give you precise information, I saw the Link for the welding Institute, (TWI) It would prob be a good idea to contact them. Also I thunk it might be a good idea to fire your post up on ukwelder.


In my view what you will prob need to do is, preheat the joint, weld it and then very slowly with draw the heat.

Dont bother with propane, It's shermaic tiles wrapped in heat proof webbing. your prob looking at about 36-50 hrs for the whole job to be finished, the bulk of the time spent preheating maintaining and anelling the joint.

 

[TechnicAl]

I was once involved in welding some rails to the floor of a massive freezer room. The rails were for an automatic picker. The place was enormous and -50 oC (I think, but it could have been -40) It was impossible to preheat the steel floor and we didnt know what steel it was but we assumed it was only mild steel.
In the end we did it with Stainless Steel Rods 309L. It worked and I never heard of any subsequent problems so I assume it never cracked or broke.