It used to be that in order to weld on a large pipe system like you’ll find in the pharmaceutical or food processing industry (or gas and petroleum) you’d have to flood the whole system with argon to weld a small area of pipe. This was great for the gas suppliers, but not so great for the bottom line. Gas is expensive! A much more efficient process is to utilize a device to isolate the area where you will be welding and fill just that area with purge gas. Using a device like a purge bladder for your pipe welding will not only improve your weld quality but your productivity as well– who wants a bunch of well paid workers standing around waiting for an entire factory’s pipe system to fill with argon!?
There are many purge devices available for pipe welding, and Arc-Zone carries most of them: tube and pipe plugs, purge baffles, water soluble purge paper dams, and water soluble purge film. We even offer oxygen sensors, purge chambers, and high-tech trailing shields for TIG welding. But the device we’re most excited about now is the latest from Aquasol: the I-Purge and I-Purge X modular purge bladder systems for pipe welding. These made-in-the-USA inflatable bladders are cost effective and easy to install into a wide variety of pipes or tubes.
With one bladder on each side of the weld zone, you’ll create a localized area to purge, reducing your argon purge gas consumption (as much as 98% less), and significantly reducing purge time. You’ll see better quality welds with substantially lower welding and labor costs.
Purge bladders can be used over and over again to create localized purge areas for all your tube and pipe welding applications. The purge bladders from Aquasol include a line of multi-size bladders; so you can set up localized purge for several different pipe sizes. Aquasol purge bladders also offer different harness lengths. so the bags can be moved farther away from the heat zone when pre-heating pipes which offers more flexibility in set-up and eliminates the need for the more expensive Hi-Temp purge bladders.
The Aquasol purge bladders also have an exhaust port to connect an oxygen monitor, so you don’t need to try and get the reading from the root gap, you can directly test the atmosphere via the port. It’s much easier.
If you need help figuring out the right purge system, contact us and we’ll make sure you get what you need for your pipe welding needs.
