摘要 |
A pipe clamping structure is arranged to clamp an in-place pipe to be welded. A welding mechanism in turn is coupled to the pipe clamping structure for rigid guided movement in directions parallel to itself towards and away from the clamping structure in an axial direction along the pipe. The welding mechanism in turn supports a horseshoe-shaped weld head support rotor which receives the pipe in the horseshoe opening and is arranged to rotate about the pipe axis. A torch head is carried on the horseshoe rotor so that a 360 DEG weld can be achieved and simultaneously, the welding mechanism can be oscillated back and forth by the rigid guidance and alignment coupling with the clamp structure. In addition, the torch head is held on a link plate to the rotor, the link plate being swingable to vary the arc gap and thus provide appropriate voltage control. The overall dimensions of the welding apparatus as measured in an axial direction are not greater than twice the diameter of the largest size pipe which can be accommodated so that in-place welding can take place in relatively awkward situations in a completely automatic manner.
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