Novel pipe and pressure vessel weld tech concept gets manufacturing support

Sometimes getting novel technologies off the ground involves establishing the right partnerships to grow a concept into a reality. Paul Cheng, principal of FuseRing, may have found his ideal partner in Mississauga, Ont.-based SORSYS Technologies. In April 2022 it was announced that SORSYS would build demonstration models of the FuseRing technology.

Solid-State Fusion

The FuseRing concept uses solid-state fusion to join sections of pipe. This welding process, invented by Canadian David Lingnau and termed by him “Spinduction,” uses a combination of induction heating and kinetic energy to join two workpieces without the filler metals or solid-to-liquid phase transformation. Essentially, the process involves using an induction heating coil to preheat the ends of two tubes or pipes. You then retract the coil and compress the ends, and then rotate one of the two pipes.

The solid-state fusion process has one inherent restriction—one part has to rotate, thus limiting the joining of pipelines to valves or any segment that is non-linear, or really any part that is difficult to rotate in the field. This is where Cheng’s concept brings value to the table.

The FuseRing concept acts as an intermediary between two non-rotatable objects; a coupler ring of the same material as the host pipeline being joined is placed between two sections. The device is designed to heat this coupler and turn it, “squeezing” it between the two non-rotatable sections. This enables the entire pipeline segment to be joined using one fusion system.

The technique uses no filler and produces no fumes or particulates.

“The whole process takes less than 60 seconds,” said Cheng, who has been promoting the concept at conferences in Canada and the U.S. for a number of years now.

Cheng notes that a wide variety of materials are suitable for this form of welding, and his focus has been on promoting it to industries that struggle with time constraints and safety concerns, such as pipeline, refinery, nuclear, ship building, and submarine industries.

“It can be scaled from 2 in. to 48 in.,” said Cheng. “And the important thing is that it doesn’t require post-weld treatment. If you’ve got a spent fuel container for the nuclear industry, how are you going to treat the inside of that weld? It’s an answer to that type of issue. The heat in this welding process only extends a few millimetres, so the interior of the container remains almost at room temperature.

“In addition, the OD and ID are mirror images, and we can regulate them to be flat, concave, or convex.”

Building Confidence

It has been demonstrated in independent testing that solid-state fusion welding creates a joint with no soft dip in hardness and no evidence of martensite of banded structure surviving in the recrystallized zone. There also is not the typical heat-affected zone one expects to see in a weld. Cheng has received an enthusiastic response from experts in a number of fields, and the new partnership with SORSYS should help push the process along.

SORSYS was founded by Saman Sahraei, Saeid Khosravani, and Peyman Eskandari, engineers who decided to start a company focused on creating automated systems for specific industrial issues that may affect a company’s business growth trajectory.

“The team there are real go-getters,” said Cheng. “They understand the value of this technology and have a good understanding of how to move projects forward to get results.”

With a demonstration model to work with, Cheng believes the technology will make the leap into the field.

“A lot of people have said to me, ‘Let me know when you have a customer, I will be your second,’” he said. “I think the demonstration model will remove that hesitancy.”

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at rcolman@canadianfabweld.com.

FuseRing, fusering.com

SORSYS Technologies, www.sorsys.ca