Pioneering pipeline tech to appear at robotics conference

A world-first in pipeline technology that is set to revolutionise performance and safety will feature at a robotics conference in the UK later this month. 

According to the consortium behind its development, the Friction Stir Welding Robotic Crawler, or FSWBot, which was developed for internal repair and refurbishment of pipelines and generates energy from the passing flow of fossil fuels as it travels through and mends, will transform practices dealing with pipeline issues across sectors. 

The FSWBot was first showcased in Aberdeen last November and the pioneering technology will also feature in a presentation at a Transformative Robotics for Industries day at the 4th Annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) UK and Ireland Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Chapter Conference held at the University of Manchester on January 22.

The FSWBot will also be part of a presentation at the Offshore Pipeline Technology Conference in Amsterdam in February. It will also appear at the Friction Stir Welding International Symposium in Kyoto, Japan in May.

Peter Routledge, Forth Engineering Project Manager, said: “We are getting a lot of interest and inquiries about the FSWBot from across the globe. Interest is really building, including from Saudi Arabia, America, Canada, France and Spain.”

The project, sponsored by Innovate UK, seeks to integrate several state-of-the-art technologies including friction stir welding, milling, patch deployment and ultrasonic NDT, onto a robotic system which can be deployed to conduct repairs on pipelines without the need for the pipeline to be closed down for the duration of the repair. 

If successful, it is envisaged that the system could be further developed to carry out a range of repair and fabrication tasks.

The FSWBot received funding from Innovate UK in 2018 for a consortium led by Forth Engineering to develop a ‘proof of concept’ system. 

Forth Engineering is working with consortium members TWI, J4IC, Innvotek and LSBU on the project which will have a major positive impact on safety within the industry.

Friction stir welding is a solid state welding process which generates enough frictional heat to soften or plasticise the metal without melting it, allowing metal components to be forged together at the joint line

This system will demonstrate that a patch weld can be made in steel pipe under oil, and that a representative FSW system can be made small enough to operate in a 36-inch (91.4 cm) diameter export pipe. 

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