Various Inflatable Pipe Purging Systems are in use Worldwide for welding titanium, stainless steel and zirconium tubes and pipes. Often, these purging systems are inflated beyond their capacity and burst mid-weld, resulting in a lost weld and broken purging system.
To ensure the gas going through the pipe purging system is controlled, Huntingdon Fusion Techniques HFT® have designed and developed PurgeGate®, a unique valve which regulates the pressure and flow of gas that is passed through the system, ensuring the system will not burst regardless of the pressure and flow rate.
PurgeGate® has found valuable applications in the Welding Industry, where inflatable devices are used for Weld Purging of tubes and pipes. Setting flow rates and pressures on gas regulators can be interfered with by personnel distant to the welding process, who might move the controls or play with them, without realising the harm that can be done. If inflatable devices are caused to burst during a tube or pipe weld sequence then the loss of protective gas can cause a highly expensive and extremely inconvenient weld repair.
PurgeGate® is fitted as standard on HFT®’s QuickPurge® and HotPurge® Tube, Pipe and Pipeline Weld Purging Systems and is an optional extra for their lower cost PurgElite® and PurgExtra® series. PurgeGate® is designed to fit on all brands of Pipe Purging Systems and the reusable valve can easily be moved from system to system.