Inflatable Welding Enclosures provide low cost Argon Gas Shielding Environment
Welding applications within industries such as the Aerospace, Additive Manufacturing and F1 Racing as well as Medical, Pharmaceutical, Semiconductors and any other company that needs super clean welding joints, have a requirement of absolute cleanliness and smoothness of surfaces, ensuring each weld is mechanically stable and free from oxidation.
Titanium is often the metal of choice for such joints and being a reactive metal, must be shielded with argon during welding to protect the molten metal from oxygen, moisture and nitrogen. It is inevitable that some shielding methods will occasionally fail to fully protect the weld and may lead to a loss of corrosion resistance properties and a rejected weld.
Reliable exclusion of reactive gases in the welding environment is guaranteed when using a low cost Flexible Welding Enclosure®, together with a Weld Purge Monitor® designed and manufactured from Weld Purging Experts Huntingdon Fusion Techniques HFT®, to achieve and show oxygen levels as low as 10 parts per million (ppm).
Luke Keane, Technical Support for HFT® said: “Our standard and specially made Enclosures are available for a fraction of the cost of a rigid welding chamber, providing a technically viable option to the very expensive metal chambers and purge boxes.”
“Special Flexible Welding Enclosures® can be designed and manufactured to suit any purpose. We’ve recently manufactured systems for complete robot manufacturing cells and for GTAW (TIG) as well as laser additive manufacturing applications.”
Size for size, Flexible Welding Enclosures® cost considerably less than a metal glove box or a vacuum system.
A vacuum system is not necessary to obtain a very fast purging time down to a few ppm of oxygen. The Welding Enclosures are ideal for small production quantities of items that need total gas coverage as well as single large items with critical joints.
A combination of translucent material and optically clear sheet is used depending on the viewing requirements of the customer. Large access zips are fitted to each Enclosure and additional entry points can be provided for operators’ gloves.
A service panel incorporates access ports for welding torches, electrical leads and water-cooling supplies. A purge gas entry port and exhaust valve are also manufactured as standard to vent displaced gas into the atmosphere.
Flexible Welding Enclosures® are used by companies such as British Airways, Airbus, Pratt and Whitney, Lufthansa, GKN, Senior Engineering and Shapes Aerospace International along with many other companies in the Aerospace field and many other Industries such as Titanium Bicycle Manufacturing Companies.
Huntingdon Fusion Techniques HFT® have a Worldwide Exclusive Distributor network, which can be found at www.huntingdonfusion.com.
Flexible Welding Enclosures® video is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlYO0PYTTro