Heat exchangers are indispensable equipment in industrial production, widely used in industries such as chemical, pharmaceutical, power, petrochemical, food processing, and semiconductors. As industrial production demands increasingly higher efficiency, corrosion resistance, and service life for equipment, the welding technology in heat exchanger manufacturing processes has reached new standards. Especially in the welding of stainless steel materials, traditional manual welding faces problems such as uneven welds, large deformations, and low production efficiency. Orbital welding machines, with their high precision, automation, and stability, have become an important tool for the heat exchanger manufacturing industry to improve welding quality and production efficiency.
A orbital welding machine is an automated welding device that moves along a preset track. A precision control system controls the welding torch to continuously operate along the welding trajectory, ensuring precise consistency in weld position, angle, and depth. Its main characteristics include:
High-precision welding: The orbital welding machine can precisely control the welding trajectory according to welding drawings and process requirements, ensuring weld consistency and meeting the high standards of heat exchangers for weld airtightness and mechanical strength.
Automated operation: Automated control reduces human error, lowers labor intensity, and improves production efficiency.
Adaptable to Complex Welds: Heat exchangers have complex structures, including tube sheets, tube bundles, and shells. Orbital welding machines can perform multi-angle and multi-curve welding.
Suitable for Stainless Steel Welding: Stainless steel heat exchangers are widely used due to their corrosion resistance, but welding has a large heat-affected zone and is prone to deformation. Orbital welding machines can effectively reduce welding stress and deformation by precisely controlling welding parameters.
Heat exchangers typically use stainless steel materials such as 304 and 316L. Welding these materials presents the following challenges:
Thermal Deformation and Residual Stress: Stainless steel has good thermal conductivity, and thermal expansion and contraction easily occur during welding, leading to equipment deformation and affecting assembly accuracy.
High Weld Quality Requirements: The connection between the heat exchanger tube sheet and tube bundle needs to ensure airtightness and pressure resistance. Internal weld defects will directly affect equipment performance.
Complex Structure Welding: Welding components such as tube sheets, tube bundles, and shells involves multiple directions and angles, making it difficult to maintain consistency in manual welding.
High Production Efficiency Requirements: Traditional manual welding is inefficient and cannot meet market demands in mass production.
Orbital welding machines are designed to address these challenges, providing high-quality, high-efficiency automated welding solutions.
3.1 Tube Bundle Welding
The core component of a heat exchanger is the tube bundle. The welding quality between the tube bundle and the tube sheet directly affects the thermal efficiency and pressure resistance of the equipment. Orbital welding machines, through precise control of the welding trajectory and welding speed, ensure uniform welds without porosity, while reducing tube bundle deformation. Multi-axis linkage orbital welding machines can also handle complex tube bundle geometries, enabling batch automated welding.
3.2 Tube Sheet Welding
The tube sheet is a crucial pressure-bearing component of the heat exchanger, requiring high airtightness and high mechanical strength in its welds. Orbital welding machines can continuously weld the edges and welding rings of the tube sheet, ensuring smooth and uniform welds while reducing thermal and residual stress. Automated welding not only improves welding quality but also shortens the production cycle.
3.3 Shell and Pipe Welding
Welding of the heat exchanger shell involves connecting large plates and pipes. Traditional manual welding easily leads to uneven welds or localized overheating. The orbital welding machine precisely controls the welding trajectory through program control, precisely controlling heat input and welding speed to reduce deformation and welding stress, while improving the corrosion resistance and mechanical strength of the weld.
3.4 Precision Component Welding
High-end heat exchangers contain numerous small precision components, such as manifolds, supports, and guide tubes. The orbital welding machine can flexibly adjust the welding path according to the structure of different components, achieving high-precision welding and ensuring the overall quality of the equipment.
High Weld Consistency: The orbital welding machine welds along a preset trajectory, ensuring uniform weld width, depth, and angle, avoiding errors from manual welding.
Reduced Deformation and Stress: By optimizing the welding path and heat input control, thermal deformation and residual stress during the stainless steel welding process are effectively reduced.
Increased Production Efficiency: Automated welding allows for continuous operation, reducing rework rates and making it suitable for mass production.
Meets Corrosion and Pressure Resistance Requirements: The precise control of the orbital welding machine ensures weld sealing and mechanical strength, adapting to the operating environment of stainless steel heat exchangers.
Adaptability to Complex Structures: Multi-axis control technology enables orbital welding machines to handle complex welds, including those on tube bundles, tube sheets, shells, and precision components.
With the upgrading of heat exchanger manufacturing technology, orbital welding machines are also constantly evolving:
Multi-axis linkage: Achieving three-dimensional complex trajectory welding, adapting to diverse heat exchanger designs.
Laser and arc hybrid welding: Combining the high energy density of lasers with the excellent penetration of arc welding to optimize weld quality.
Intelligent welding monitoring: Real-time monitoring of welding temperature, penetration depth, and welding speed, automatically adjusting parameters to ensure welding stability.
Modular design: Facilitating rapid deployment across different heat exchanger production lines, improving production flexibility.
Orbital welding machines play a crucial role in heat exchanger manufacturing. Through high-precision, stainless steel-specific welding technology, they solve problems such as uneven welds, large deformations, and low production efficiency in traditional welding. Whether for tube bundles, tube sheets, shells, or precision components, orbital welding machines can provide high-quality, high-efficiency welding solutions, meeting the stringent requirements of the heat exchanger industry for weld airtightness, corrosion resistance, and mechanical strength. With the development of automation and intelligent technologies, orbital welding machines will further enhance the manufacturing level of heat exchangers, providing more reliable and efficient equipment support for industrial production.
NODHA, a orbital welding machine manufacturer from China, focuses on providing high-precision, stainless steel-specific automated welding solutions for the heat exchanger industry. The company not only provides advanced orbital welding equipment but also offers comprehensive technical support and process optimization services to help customers achieve welds with uniformity, high airtightness, and high mechanical strength. Whether welding tube bundles, tube sheets, or shells to precision components, NODHA can provide customized welding solutions to improve production efficiency, reduce deformation risks, and ensure stable and reliable welding quality for every heat exchanger unit, creating efficient and sustainable manufacturing assurance for customers.
Mr. Jeff Huang
15251441199
Miss Doria Zhu
15102105304
Miss Jina Wang
18261592800
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Oct 10,2025
