Orbital welding is a specialized welding area whereby the arc is rotated mechanically by 360 ° (180 degrees in double welding) around a static workpiece, an object such as a tube, in a continuous process. The process was developed to address the issue of operator error in tungsten gas arc welding (GTAW) processes. In orbital welding, the computer controlled process is executed with little operator intervention. The process is specifically used for high quality repeatable welding. The orbital welding process was invented by the Head of Research, V.H. Pavlecka, and engineer Russ Meredith of Northrup Aircraft Inc. more than 50 years ago to address the issue of operator error in GTAW.
The main components of each orbital welding system are the power supply and the controller, the welding head and, where necessary, a wire feed mechanism. Welding of certain sizes and types of materials will also require the use of a water / coolant system. There are a number of factors that can influence the welding result. These aspects include the arc length, magnitude and frequency of the pulse of the welding current, the welding speed, the inert protection gas, the original material, the filler material, the preparation of the weld and the thermal conductivity . Ultimately, high quality welding is achieved through a detailed knowledge of how to precisely adjust all these parameters for each individual welding task.