Welding robot produces better oil well screens with less direct labour

Citation

Bloss, R. (2005), "Welding robot produces better oil well screens with less direct labour", Industrial Robot, Vol. 32 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2005.04932eaf.001

Welding robot produces better oil well screens with less direct labour

Welding robot produces better oil well screens with less direct labour

Keywords: Welding, Robotics

BJ Services, a Houston supplier of oil well drilling equipment, reached for robotic help when it wanted to increase the quality of its well screens and reduce direct labour. Oil well screens go to the bottom of oil or natural gas wells to hold back the sand as the crude oil or gas is extracted and pumped to the surface. Quality of the screen is extremely important, as maintenance on a screen requires extracting the entire pipe system from the well.

With oil and gas wells go as deep as 6,000 meters, screen maintenance means extracting and reinserting all the 12 meter plus pipe sections needed to reach the bottom screens. Some times there is also up to a 1,000 meters of seawater between the drilling platform and the seabed, adding to extraction to service issues.

BJ Services turned to Genesis Systems, a custom robot system integrator, to design and supply a robotic arc welding system. Genesis Systems specializes in developing custom design robot solutions for arc, spot and laser welding and laser cutting applications. Headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, the firm employs about 150 with skills addressing all types of robot welding applications requirements (Plate 1).

Plate 1 Close up view of custom designed welding station

Genesis Systems has implemented over 1600 robotic welding/cutting systems since its founding in 1983. The firm has developed a number of standard welding cell packages which are the appropriate solution to many requirements but develops a custom system if after careful review a standard package is not the right answer.

The system for BJ Service is required to weld various types of well screens to a number of oil well pipe material grades and sizes. Screens are usually constructed of 3/16 in. (approx. 0.5 cm) thick “L” grade stainless steel or Incoloy 825, a high nickel content steel.

Prior to the installation of the robot welder, up to four human welders were required to perform the screen to pipe arc-welding operations. Not only was there considerable direct labor involved, careful inspection of the finished screen was required to insure desired quality. When well screens are shipped to drillers in remote locations such as Brazil, excellent product quality is critical.

The unique custom designed Genesis Systems screen welder features a Fanuc 1001 track mounted robot. The robot can traverse horizontally the entire length of a 12m pipe section held in a workstation, welding as required. The robot arm can position the welding head at precisely the position required for each screen weld.

The robot welder, using a Fanuc Model 100iB, is able to complete a well screen weld cycle in about 20 minutes while manual welding, which the robot replaces, took typically two hours to complete just one well screen.

To initiate a robotic weld cycle, the operator enters specific data such as pipe diameter, screen diameter, number of screens, need for preheat or not, and centralized blade locations into the HMI Quick Panel. The robot is pre-loading with the general welding pattern that is then automatically adapted to the specific workpiece. The specially designed welding station provides all the clamping and support functions needed for the complete application.

Richard BlossAssociate Editor