High-Volume, Heavy Weld Overlay Production of Petrochemical Tube Sheets
Project Overview: Breaking Production Records
In one of the most intense turnaround challenges faced by our production facility, Openex Metal Fabrication successfully completed a massive single-batch order for high-performance petrochemical tube sheets. Representing the largest single quantity and most urgent delivery deadline ever contracted to Openex, the client requested turnkey fabrication and multi-layer weld overlay cladding for approximately 70 individual massive tube sheets.
Given the extraordinarily complex manufacturing sequence, executing an order of this magnitude without missing strict international delivery deadlines demanded the synchronized coordination of almost every department in our 180-acre facility.
The Complex Manufacturing Workflow
Each of the 70 heavy components could not merely be cut and shipped. The metallurgical demands required an exhausting sequence of deep fabrication workflows. Maintaining extreme dimensional precision during thermal cycling was an unforgiving challenge—requiring our heavy machinery and welding operators to coordinate perfectly.
To apply highly corrosion-resistant surfacing without compromising the structural core, the workpieces underwent controlled thermal pre-heating. Leveraging our fleet of advanced ESAB Electroslag Strip Cladding Machines (which feature massive horizontal/vertical traverse envelopes of up to 7000mm), operators accurately deposited smooth transition barriers and top surface overlay layers at extremely high speeds.
Applying such massive quantities of hot weld material creates dangerous internal tensile stress. Our metallurgy department routed the sheets straight into our car-bottom furnaces for Post-Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT). Once relaxed, tooling fixtures were unmounted and rigorous planar flattening operations successfully recovered perfect vertical dimensional alignments.
Following defect clearance via deep ultrasonic flaw detection (UT NDT), components underwent complex finish lathe-turning and high-density deep-hole drilling for the tube insertion channels across our VTL machining centers.
Execution Floor Documentation
Photographs tracking the synchronized manufacturing deployment of the 70 units across Openex welding and layout sectors.
Strategic Logistics Taskforce
Such extreme delivery times on 70 parts would crash normal industrial supply lines. To circumvent internal bottlenecks, Openex quickly erected a unified task force representing Engineering, Sales, Procurement, QA, and Floor Assembly leads. Real-time meetings aligned machine-setup changeovers accurately, fine-tuned cladding parameters on the ESAB heads, and successfully throttled the deposition output speed without sacrificing the beauty and structural fusion of the weldments.