Corrosion Resistant Alloys for Deep Offshore Drilling by High Density Infrared Fusion Process

Corrosion of offshore oil and gas pipelines is an important problem that can generate catastrophic failures if not adequately managed. The issues are more important and critical for deepwater pipelines due to complexity of the designs and also due to difficulty in inspection, monitoring, and repair. Pipelines exposed to these severely corrosive environments require the use of corrosion resistant alloys (CRAs). CRA clad carbon steel backing pipe offers a more economical alternative to the use of CRAs for both acquisition and installation cost. Current well-established processes for producing clad steels have product limitiations and/or require large capital investments to modify or expand capacity and offerings. High Density Infrared (HDIR) fusion cladding offers the product flexibility and low capital costs of laser or arc-weld overlay cladding process but offers a higher purity overlay and much higher and scalable production rates. The HDIR fabrication process utilizes an area-based high intensity radiant thermal source appled to a powder CRA precursor to rapidly fuse the metal and/or cermet coatings, producing a true metallurgical bond without measurable iron dilution in the cladding.