Subsea Welding

The Opportunity
Underwater welding can be classified as wet or dry welding. In wet welding the welding is
performed underwater and directly exposed to the wet environment. In dry welding, a dry chamber
is created near the area to be welded and the welder does the job by staying inside the chamber.
Wet welding is cheaper, but can only be performed at shallow depths. Besides, problems such as
rapid quenching, decreased strength and ductility result in lower quality weld in comparison to dry
welding.
Developments in the industry have led to a number of welding techniques utilising Tungsten Inert
Gas (TIG) & Metal Inert Gas (MIG). Overall MIG appears to be more suitable to deep water welding
operations with ongoing research and development in this area to optimise welding joint design.
The Challenges
1. Depth Limitation using a Diver
Divers can be used only to limited depths for example 180 meters of seawater (msw) in the North Sea.
This has resulted in a tendency towards development of remotely operated welding systems since the
1970s.
2.

Development of Remotely Operated Welding Systems

Statoil is developing a fully remote controlled weld repair system designed for 1000 msw, referred to as
Remote PRS.
There are still requirements for making the welding tool more efficient and faster.
MIG is only effective for material grades up to API 5L X70. Higher grades of linepipe increases the risk
of Hydrogen Induced Stress Cracking (HISC)
Reliability
Cost-effectiveness

3.

Weld Joint Integrity

High strength steels are used in underwater environments to resist high pressures
These steels have high carbon equivalent (CE) and therefore are susceptible to cold cracking (hydrogen
cracking)
Steel is getting thicker making existing welding techniques unsuitable

4.

Weld Quality and Longevity

Control over weld quality: porosity, manual cracks and other imperfections

5.

Welding of Duplex Steel

22Cr and 25Cr duplex stainless steels have been used extensively within subsea units such as manifold
and X-mas trees for more than 20 years. These materials are used as castings, forgings, seamless pipe
and rolled products
Welding of duplex steel is more complicated process. Control of correct heat input and cooling time is
required, as it results in high ferrite content and risk of formation of intermetallic phases
Welding of X-mas trees and manifolds adds problem of geometry and needs to manually controlled