Welding Stainless Steel to meet Hygienic Requirements by Dr. Alan Godwin Introduction This presentation follows very closely the European Hygienic Equipment Design Group (EHEDG) Report entitied “Welding Stainless Steel to meet Hygienic Requirements”. The EHEDG document was itself based on unpublished internal Unilever work that covered the requirements for the hygienic fabrication of both vessels and pipework ‘The aim of the document for pipework was to increase the general level of awareness of the techniques required to produce hygienically acceptable welds in the thin walled (less than 3mm) stainless steel applications. ‘The document could also be used in discussions with contracting companies to illustrate the standard ‘of welding required and the preferred methods of achieving the necessary quality The Need for Hygienic Welds ‘A wide variety of vessels and pipework are used for the hygienic manufacture of food products. Most of this equipment is fabricated from austenitic stainless steel. The preferred method of connection of the pipework is by welding, and hence itis equally important to ensure that weldments reflect the hygiene qualities of the pipework as closely as possible. ‘The design philosophy of a hygienic plant follows three central themes, specifically that the product, must flow freely through the plant and not stagnate, that the plant must be cleanable and as a ‘consequence sanitisable, and that the contents of the plant should be pro:ected from the external environment. As a result, welds must also be subject to the same requirements. Poor welds can contribute to a number of hygiene negatives. For instance, the product may be retained for a variety of reasons e.g. crevices, other dead areas, or rough surfaces, all of which may be difficult or impossible to clean in the usual CIP (Cleaning In Place) cycle. Should the trapped product become contaminated, these regions could serve to inoculate otherwise sound product with micro-organisms. Inadequate welding can therefore compromise product quality in what may otherwise be a hygienically designed plant. The primary purpose of a weld is to provide a joint of sufficient mechanical strength to function according to the design. Consequently, a weld must meet all mechanical strength requirements, notably where legislation demands certain standards, for example pressure system requirements. Hygienic requirements, which can offen be more demanding, are in addition to mechanical considerations. Welds must of course be executed in a manner which avoids susceptibility to localised corrosion. Furthermore the introduction of new techniques such as line pigging demand a similar standard of weldingAustenitic Stainless Steels The austenitic stainless steels find widespread use in industry as the automatic choice as materials of construction for processing plant and equipment. Their popularity stems both from their generally good corrosion resistance and from the ease with which they can be cleaned and sterilised. “They are referred to as austenitic because of their metallurgical structure. The most commonly used grades of the austenitic stainless steels are the 18/10 Cr/Ni types, and the 1811213 CriNi/Mo types. The former type is commonly known as 304 stainless steel and the latter as 316 stainless steel, these numbers being the American and Steel Institute (AISI) designations. ‘Although, stricly speaking, the AISI number system has been replaced by a Unified Numbering System, UNS, the old AISI system is widely used. From a metallurgical point of view it is important to avoid “chromium depletion” in the weld heat affected zone (HAZ) by specifying austentic stainless steel with either a low carbon content (<0.03%C) i.e. type 316L or stabilised with titanium or niobium ie. type 316Ti or 316ND. In many countries, the carbon content of stainless steels is sufficiently low to prevent sensitisation. However, this is not the case in all countries and therefore, there is a tendency to specify 316L to cater for cases where the carbon contents high. In most environments likely to be encountered in hygienic processing plant, the molybdenum coniaining austenitic steels, 316 have improved pitting and crevice corrosion resistance over the non molybdenum containing steels, 304. In fact, for the majority of purchased hygienic equipment, 316 is the only readily available material In most applications, the austenitic stainless steels give good service lives but, like any other material cf construction, the austenitic steels have certain weaknesses. ‘The major problem associated with the use of the austenitic stainless steels is their susceptibility to various forms of localised corrosion, especially in the presence of the chloride ion. General Fabrication Requirements for Pipework General It is important that the fabrication of hygienic quality pipework is carried out to a high standard. The methods for fabrication and the standards realised in practice, should not offer any increased risk of bacteriological contamination or any increased cleaning requirements. Defects associated with changes in geometry should be minimised and weld defects such as porosity, cracks, incorrect penetration should not be permitted. Types of Welds ‘As a general rule, all welds found in pipework should be high quality butt welds with no surface- breaking defects,‘Surface Finish It is common to quote the surface finish of materials in terms of a parameter “Ra’. It is the arithmetic mean of the departures of the profile from the mean line. “Ra" is the universally recognised and most used international parameter to measure surface roughness. It must be realised that the “Ra” value of a surface gives no information as to the shape of the surface irregularities or profile. Significant different surface profiles can have the same “Ra value. Despite the limitations of representing a surface profile by a single number (its “Ra” value) it has been shown that there is a good correlation between the “Ra” value of the surface and its deanabilty ‘The EHEDG recommended surface finish of stainless steel should be equal to or less than Ra = 0.8um. Standards and Specifications The international standards organisation, ISO, has defined several series of standards for steel tubes for various purposes, or produced by various manufacturing methods. Most existing tube sizes are included in one or other of the ISO series, The ISO system is widely adopted in Europe. However, the American ANSI system is widely used throughout the wortd. For most cases, the size differences between ISO and ANSI diameters are small, and in most cases, are covered by tolerances. From a practical point of view, it is important that pipework corresponding to different standards is not used when there are differences in diameters and/or thickness. Seamless and Longitudinally Welded Pipework ‘The debate over the merits of seamless versus longitudinally welded pipework has been going on for several years. ‘Some sectors of the foods business would only accept seamless pipework whilst others were content to accept longitudinally welded pipework. There are several different manufacturing processes used to produce longitudinally welded pipework, especially in terms of the post weld finishing of the weld bead. It is possible to obtain longitudinally welded pipework with the weld bead removed and this product is becoming increasingly used in the food industry, subject, of course, to the surface finish requirement of 0.8um Ra.Fabrication of Pipework General Considerations Wherever and whenever possible, butt welds in pipework should be carried out by GTAWITIG using an orbital welding machine. For most pipework systems, about 80-90% of all the butt welds can be performed using an orbital welder. Instances where orbital welding cannot be used are due to: (@) restricted access, when the minimum centre-to-centre space required between two parallel pipes precludes the use of an orbital welding machine. Typically, for pipework with an outer diameter of ‘40mm, the minimum distance is 75mm. For pipework with an outer diameter of 80mm, the minimum distance is 120mm. These distances will vary depending upon the actual orbital welder used, (©) insufficient length of straight pipework to enable the orbital welding machine to be clamped to the pipework. Typical minimum straight lenaths required range from 3-Smm depending upon the weld head type. When orbital welding is not possible manual GTAW is recommended because with experienced welders, satisfactory welds can be produced, Orbital Welding Orbital Welding is an automated version of GTA/TIG-welding in which the welding head rotates around the pipe. An Orbital Welding head consists of: Clamping Device Motorised Drive Tungsten Electrode Inert Gas Supply Electrical Supply and Control to both the Drive and the Electrode For pipes with wall thickness greater than 3mm, the use of the filer wire is required and an optional extra is an automatic wire feed is driven by an electric motor. The speed of travel and the position of the torch is precisely controlled by the power source Pulsed arc welding is used in preference to step pulsed welding, Gas Shiel io Gas Shielding is necessary in two areas: ~ Shrouing the tungsten electrode to prevent oxidation ~ Behind the weld internal of the pipe to prevent oxidation of the internal surface ‘An inert shielding gas on the back side of the weld MUST be introduced and can be controlled in a number of ways:Soluble dams are plugs of material which can be placed inside pipework so that itis only necessary to {gas shield a small volume around the area to be welded, Once the weld is complete, the pipe carrying the shielding gas is withdrawn, leaving the dam in place. During the subsequent pressure test with water, the dam dissolves. - Purge bladders which can be inflated inside the pipework. - Hinged collapsible purging discs. In general, Argon, with a purity of 89.5% minimum, is used as the shielding gas. Information on the ‘optimum purging for economy with efficient avoidance of oxidation has been published by Anderson and Wiktorowicz. Preparation for Orbital Welding Pipework and fitings should be capped and suitably protected from the ingress of foreign materials at all times, except when being used during fabrication. This is especially important during on site storage. Preparation consists of four main steps 1) Immediately prior to welding, there should be an inspection of pipes and fitings to ensure that the ‘components are suitable for welding using fully automatic orbital welding equipment. This misalignment tolerance is a maximum of 20% of the wall thickness. If the two diameters exceed this figure, then the smaller pipe should be expanded to match the larger. Specialised hydraulic ‘expanding tools are available for this purpose and ensure the pipe remains cylindrical 2) Pipe Cutting - To ensure that the end of the pipe is at 900 to the longitudinal axis, a manual technique should not be used. It is normal to use an electric pipe cutting machine fitted with a metal blade. Any burrs should be removed using stainless steel deburring tools. Care must be taken not to remove the comer edges of the pipe, as this can give rise to problems with fusion of the root of the weld. The deburring should not damage the internal surface finish of the pipework. 3) Surface Preparation - The pipe surface, 25mm either side of the weld, should be abraded with a stainless wire brush, or emery paper. Then both the pipe ends and roughened surface area should be degreased with a solvent. Failure to do so may lead to porosity in the weld. The components to be welded must be clean, dry and free from contamination by oil 4) Alignment - The components to be welded together have to be held rigidly using a suitable clamping arrangement which is fited with stainless steel jaws. Agreed Standard of Welding Prior to fabrication, its necessary for the fabrication contractor to demonstrate that he is capable of ‘making hygienically acceptable welds in the range of pipework sizes that will be employed. This is normally done by producing a series of sampies, in al the sizes to be employed, by both orbital welding and manual GTAW. These sample welds should be used to agree on what is acceptable and what is ‘ot. They serve as reference samples throughout the contract. In some instances, every welding machine operator and every welder, who will be employed as a manual GTAW welder, will have to submit test samples.Tack Welding Tack welding, prior to orbital welding, will be performed manually. The automatic welding machine should not be used for tack welding. The two components should be held together with 3 or 4 tacks before the clamping arrangement is released The fit up and the alignment of the two components has to be checked and verified as suitable before the final orbital welds are completed. ‘Tacks should not penetrate through to the intemal surface, Gas purging is necessary during the tack welding, Orbital Welding ‘The orbital welding equipment should be performed using an automatic, programmable orbital welding machine with suitable welding heads. ‘The type of orbital welding machine should have the following features: = the machine can be pre-programmed with different welding programmes the machine should have the capabily for developing additional welding programmes the machine should have, as a minimum, the capability of controling the following welding parameters: = pre-purge time - welding current ~ welding speeds ~ pulse times, ~finish slope = post purge time Manual Welding Equipment All welding should be performed using a suitable manual GTAW set Quality Assurance Procedures If the procedures outlined above are followed, the resulting welds should be hygienically acceptable. However, it is necessary to note that because orbital welding is an automatic process, the equipment cannot compensate for variations in the set parameters. However, if the procedures outlined above are followed, two situations will have been met: There will be samples of acceptable quality orbital and manual welds, which can act as visual reference samples for both welding and inspection personnel, There will be agreed procedures to obtain such welds. In order to check the quality of the completed welds, there are several options. The three most common options are: ‘Accept that if the agreed procedures are followed, the resulting welds will be hygienically acceptable. In this case, no inspection of the internal weld surface will be carried out.Cut out a percentage of completed welds at random and assess these against the reference samples. Itis common practice to specify 10% of the welds to be removed for inspection. If one of these welds is ‘not hygienically acceptable, the welding contractor has to demonstrate that all the remaining welds are hygienically acceptable ‘Agree before welding begins, that a certain percentage of the welds will be inspected by some form of remote visual inspection, usually by endoscopy and these may be videotaped. The use of radiography is of limited use for the welded pipework. It will show porosity and heavy ‘oxidation, both of which are indicative of poor welding practices, but it cannot be used to judge the overall hygienic acceptance of a weld in the welded pipework. Possible Defects in Welded Pipework 41) Lack of Gas Shielding - The lack of adequate gas shielding during the welding of pipework presents a serious problem, The resulting internal surface suffers oxidation and produces a very rough weld bead. The external surface may appear satisfactory. 2) Misalignment - If the two faces of the pipework to be joined are not correaly aligned, a step will be formed at the weld junction, Such a feature can cause the build up of product and make cleaning more difficult and so put a rsk to the hygienic acceptability of the product. It may also increase the risk of corrosion due to depos attack 3) Porosity - Porosity is the presence of gas pockets or voids caused by the entrapment of gas during metal solidification. It can also be caused by the loss of adequate gas shielding if proper precautions are not taken to maintain the correct gas shielding due to wins etc. Porosity can be a problem when welding castings, 4) Cracking - Normally, austenitic weld metais have high resistance to cracking problems. Cracking problems will therefore, only be experienced very infrequently and will usually be associated with Poor fit-up. 5) Inadequate Penetration - From time to time, problems are experienced with weld penetration due to variations in castings. In practical terms, for stainless steel pipework, this would only be expected to be a problem when welding fittings, such as flanges, which are often supplied in the cast condition. In such cases, a weld procedure which gives satisfactory results for one casting may produce inadequate penetration with other castings.