Application of Rail-Type Welding Robot in Automatic Welding of Pipeline

Abstract

In order to realize the automatic welding of oil and gas pipelines, a kind of rail-type welding robot was designed, which includes a mechanical structure that can walk around the circumference of the pipeline steadily and a control system with the function of welding seam tracking. According to the characteristics of field construction, the robot adopted a modular design method, which primarily consists of a walking mechanism, quick clamping mechanism, welding torch adjusting mechanism, welding torch, wire feeder mechanism, guide rail, and the composition of the control system was introduced besides. The weld center identification and weld tracking were both automatically accomplished by the laser vision tracking system. Through the welding test, it has been demonstrated that the rail-type welding robot can meet the requirements of automatic welding of pipelines.