Explosive Welding

Steinmüller Africa also offers explosive welding, which is crucial to the quality and integrity of welding on high-pressure parts and pipelines.

Explosive welding is used to fuse tubes to tube plates or headers in high-pressure heat exchangers. It is performed when a tube is impelled against the tube plate material using the energy from an explosive discharge. In the process, expansion and fusion occur in a high-energy rate impact. Since the traditional welding methods are time consuming, explosive welding, with a weld metal travel speed of more than 8000 m/s, reduces welding time, plant downtime and relative repair costs. It also achieves a weld that is expanded, fused and sound. Bilfinger Steinmüller Africa is the only company in South Africa qualified and approved to perform explosive welding for the power generation sector.

Our services include:

• Explosives welding for HPH manufacture and refurbishment
• Explosive expansion for tubing in HPH
• Explosives plugging to seal leaking tubes