Energy Conservation in Welding

By
S.Sankaran

1.0 Introduction

Welding Technology has undergone significant developments during the past hundred
odd years. If we analyse these developments, we can observe that in the early days
the main objective of the development effort was to come up with a process or
technique that can produce a weld meeting the demands for performance for the wide
range of materials in use. Later the emphasis shifted to enhance the productivity and
reliability of the welds. (Example: automation, computer control of process etc.) But of
late, like in all other industrial operations, the main driving force behind new
developments is the environmental issues related to the welding operations. Among
the various environmental issues, atmospheric pollution is the one causing major
concern. One of the main cause for atmospheric pollution is energy production by
burning coal, oil or gas. Hydal and Nuclear power generation also have their own
environmental and safety issues. So conservation of energy in welding and related
operations is now getting greater attention.

Since statistical data related to Indian industries is not readily available, I am quoting
data from USA. In heavy engineering and construction activities the share of energy
used in welding and related activities is around 20% of total energy consumed by
them. (See Table 1) The Table-2 gives for a particular year, the total cost of welding
related activities and the share of energy cost. If we can get similar figures for Indian
industry, the share of energy cost may be considerably higher, as our labour rate is
very low and energy rate is higher than USA. The American Welding Society along
with the US Government has brought out a document titled “Vision for Welding
Industry”. One among the many strategic goals (or Performance Targets) identified in
that document is to “Reduce Energy use in welding by 50% by the year 2020”.
Whereas, in India with prevailing energy shortage seriously affecting industrial
production in many states, Indian industries need to take this up as one of their prime
objectives. Focusing all our attention on energy conservation in welding and related
activities is more than justified in Indian context.

Table 1 - Welding related energy cost as percentage of total energy costs

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 Table 2 - Summary of welding related expenditure for major industrial sectors

2.0 Unnecessary/Excess weld

When we embark on a mission to save energy in welding, the best place to start is the
design itself. Eliminating an unwanted weld joint is saving 100% energy that would
otherwise be spent on that weld.

A boiler has thousands of tube joints in the economiser, superheater and reheater
circuits. A boiler producer was ordering tubes in standard lengths as the buyer claimed
he can get competitive price and delivery for standard length of tubes. But a critical
analysis proved that if the tubes are ordered in specific lengths required, hundreds of
welds could be eliminated and that would more than offset marginal increase in
procurement cost for tubes. A critical review of design and material planning can
eliminate unnecessary welds and save energy.

Almost in every fabrication shop or construction site in India, we can come across
excess welding, and poor visual appearance of welds leading to grinding off the weld.
It has become a work culture to make a weld with uneven weld size or non uniform
weld bead profile and then leave it to an unskilled operator to grind them away.
Grinding off excess weld metal is a non-value added activity and is a wasteful activity
to cover up the inefficiency of the welding operation. We will very rarely come across a
weld that is ground to improve the appearance in the equipments from Japanese or
Korean fabricator. The Japanese welder considers it as an insult if the weld produced
by him had to be ground to pass the visual appearance criteria. We in India need to
train our welders and create awareness in them to produce visually acceptable welds
without grinding. The pride of workmanship should be cultivated among our welders.
Improving the accuracy of parts preparation and good fit-up of the assembly for
welding, welding machines and accessories in good working condition, and good
quality welding consumable will also be necessary to improve weld appearance, and
the welding supervisor and shop manager should be made to appreciate its
importance.

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 Picture 1 - Weld finished with full grinding Picture 2 - As welded with no grinding

3.0 Energy Efficiency of Welding Processes

Generally the criteria for selection of welding process is the capability of the process to
produce better quality of welds to maximise the performance of welds in service or
higher productivity to bring down the cost and cycle time for making the welds. But,
the energy efficiency of the process as the criteria for process selection is now
receiving greater attention. There were many attempts to evaluate the relative energy
efficiency of welding processes. Most of these consider only the energy necessary to
produce the weld. They do not reflect the total energy requirements of a welding
process accurately. So to compare the energy efficiency of each process, it is
necessary to consider energy consumption in total. A recent report published by TWI
takes into consideration both primary energy and secondary energy related to the
process

Primary Energy It is the energy required for the heating the material to
produce a satisfactory weld

Secondary Energy It is the energy required for services and auxiliary

equipment like:

 Pre-heat / Post-heat
 Electrode Baking / Holding
 Wire feed units, Motorised slides, Fume extractors
 Job handling devices - Manipulators, Gantry, Robot
 Weld preparation – Machining, Grinding
 Weld finishing – Deslagging, Grinding

The Table-3 brings out MIG/MAG and Resistance Welding as energy efficient
processes for sheet metal fabrication and Friction Stir Welding as an energy efficient,
environmentally friendly welding process for welding higher thickness.

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 Table 3 - Comparison of the total energy consumption of welding processes. (For 250mm length weld)

Material 1 mm thick Material 12 mm thick Material 50 mm thick

Process Primary Secondary Total Primary Secondary Total Primary Secondary Total
Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy Energy
KJ KJ KJ KJ KJ KJ KJ KJ KJ

MMAW 57 105 162 1420 1278 2698 17640 13035 30675

MIG/MAG 32 52 84 1280 277 1557 - - -

GTAW 94 40 130 - - - - - -

SAW - - - 1450 864 2314 16200 9870 26070

Laser 112 454 566 120 4268 4388 - - -

EBW (V) - - - 120 5283 5403 1000 7958 8958

FSW - - - 1100 347 1447 3680 1495 5175

RSW 35 11 46

In submerged - arc welding by replacing the single filler wire by two smaller diameter
wires sharing the same current, the increase in current density in the wires can
produce about 20% increase in deposition rate, with corresponding energy saving. In
MIG welding, use of smaller diameter wires operating at the same welding current,
can result increase in deposition rate and corresponding energy saving.

In resistance welding, recent advances in high-frequency inverter technology allow for

very precise control over weld energy. Modern resistance welding equipments have
built-in weld monitors, to address the demand for high- precision weld energy control.
The ability to select, control, and monitor weld energy output has a direct impact on
quality, reliability, and power savings.

4.0 Welding Power Sources

4.1 Energy Saving Device

In SMAW welding, usual arcing time achieved in a shift of 8 hrs is about 2.5 to 3 hrs. This
means idling time running of welding machines is around 5 to 5.5 hrs. The machines draw
current during idle time also. Old motor generator can draw over 1KW during idle running
while rectifiers can draw 300-400W and inverters draw as low as 50W. By using energy
saving kit, this idle power consumption can be brought down significantly. When machine
is not arcing, this energy saving device will cut off the power supply after a preset time.
Such energy saving device are fitted as part of the modern power sources, but they are
also available as attachment to older power sources.

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4.2 Power source energy efficiency

It is important to consider the power factor of welding machine. Power factor is defined as
the ratio of real power to apparent power. In a purely resistive circuit, voltage and current
waveforms are in phase, and the power factor is almost equal to 1. In circuits with
inductors and capacitors, the current and voltage waveforms are out of phase and not all
of the power is available to do useful work. Power charged will be for the apparent power,
and not on the real power utilized. Constant potential gas metal arc welding power sources
typically have a PF of about 0.9, compared to constant current gas tungsten arc welding
with a PF of about 0.6. Most manufacturers offer power factor correction equipment for
welding equipment that simply attaches to the incoming leads of the power supply.
Modern inverters offer power factors upto 0.95. Inverters typically have efficiency of
around 85-95%, compared to rectifier types at about 75% and generators at around 55%.
For the same output welding current inverter utilise about 25 – 50% less primary current
than a rectifier or generator. Table-4 shows the energy consumption per year for various
types of SMAW power sources at 30% arcing time and it brings out the energy saving
potential of Inverters.

Table 4 - Energy consumption per year for SMAW welding power sources

14000
Energy Consumption

12000
(KWH/year)

10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
Generator 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Transformer
Welding Current - A
Inverter

5.0 Welding Consumables

It is a common requirement that welding electrodes be stored in temperature and

humidity controlled stores. All high class fabricators maintain a hot room for storage of
welding consumables. The hot room is equipped with de-humidifier to control the
temperature and humidity. Power consumption for maintaining the hot room is quite
significant. Further the electrodes are baked in an oven at temperature range 150 oC
to 400 oC depending on the type of electrode and then they are held in holding ovens
at 100 oC till they are issued to the welder in portable holding ovens. By changing over
to procurement of low hydrogen electrodes in vacuum-sealed packets, the need for
hot room storage can be reduced and baking and holding ovens use can be
considerably brought down. The power rating of baking oven is about 4 to 5 KW and
the holding oven is 2 KW. Considering that the baking oven is used for one baking
cycle per day and the holding oven is operated for 24 hrs the energy saved would be
around 50KWH per day which can more than offset the extra price to be paid for
procuring the electrodes in vacuum sealed pack.

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6.0 Pre-heating, Post-Heating & PWHT:

Fabrication of thick wall pressure vessels made of low alloyed steels demand high
preheats to be maintained throughout the welding operations followed by post heating
before the weld joint can be cooled to room temperature. The preheating and post
heating are often done by using expensive LPG. Where piped CNG is available it would
work out 10-15% cheaper than using LPG. Further saving in gas consumption can be
achieved by adopting the following methods.

 Burner efficiency improvement.

 Providing Insulation / hoods to retain heat at the joint
 Infrared sensor to monitor preheat temperature and PID control to regulate fuel
consumption.

6.1 Burner efficiency improvement to save gas

Picture 3 - Low velocity candle type burner (Rs. Picture 4 - Spot burner
75/Hr) (Rs. 90/Hr )

6.2 Providing Insulation / hoods to retain heat at the joint

Picture 5 - Hood to retain heat at Picture 6 - -Dished End and Picture 7 - Forged nozzle Pre-
the joint Nozzle covered with Insulation heating

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6.3 Infrared sensor to monitor preheat temperature and PID control

The control of preheat temperature can be monitored by an infrared sensor device ahead
of the point of welding. The PID controller regulates the gas supply to the burners
depending on the temperature. A temperature recorder on the PID controller record the
preheat temperature and is available as a quality record. This can also be used to control
post-heating.

Picture 10 - Infra red sensor

Picture 8 - PID controller Picture 9 - Infra red sensor
measure preheat temperature

7.0 Post weld Heat treatment

Maximum use of energy is in furnaces for PWHT. Refractory lined furnaces waste
considerable energy to heat the mass of refractory. By changing over to ceramic fibre
lined furnace huge saving in energy can be achieved. Further savings are possible by
better arrangement of burners and efficient burner operation to achieve optimum air-
fuel ratio.

8.0 Conclusion

It can be seen from above that by carefully focusing our attention to various areas of
energy use in welding and related operations it is feasible to achieve considerable
savings in energy. More than the cost saving, the impact of such energy saving will be
reduction in atmospheric pollution and environmental protection.

Acknowledgement
I thank L&T Powai for the pictures used in this article