What Is Orbital Welding?
Welding is the process of putting two or more pieces of metal together. The process involves heat, often generated by an electrical arc, electrodes, and some kind of flux. Welding is used mostly in industrial settings, but you can find artists who work with metal and use welding as part of their process. Welding can be done manually by welders, or it can be done automatically using welding machines. One such automatic welding process is orbital welding.
Orbital Welding
This welding process uses a machine that goes around the workpiece. The piece is clamped into place or is set into its permanent place, and the orbital welding machine goes around the piece. Orbital welding is used when welding things like storage tanks, pipes, and tubes. There are several reasons why orbital welding is used for these things.
Perfect Repeatability
One reason is that the welding machine is going to be able to repeat the weld over and over and over, with the last weld being the exact same as the first weld. One reason for this is that the welding machine can be programmed and it remembers the program. The machine can hold many different programs in its memory, so when it's time to weld something, the operator can just pull up the pertinent program and let the machine run. The machine will follow its programming and create the weld that it is supposed to. That weld will be exactly like the first weld the machine laid down using that program.
Welding Difficult Seams
One problem with welding pipes, tubes, and tanks is that it is hard to weld the perfect circles necessary by hand. Even experienced welders have a hard time with these kinds of welds. The orbital welding machine was invented in the aerospace field as a way to deal with pipes that were leaking through the welds since it was so hard to make the welds perfect and within tolerance without leaking. But the orbital welding machine is able to weld those seams perfectly, partly because the part is held in place while the machine orbits around the part, no matter how large the workpiece is. In larger pieces, like large storage tanks, two or more machines might be used in order to create the perfect seams.
Welding is used in many places, from art to construction. It can be done manually or automatically, using programmable machines that are able to do the same weld over and over perfectly.
Contact a supplier to purchase orbital welding equipment today.