Edited by Kimberley Gilles, associate editor

One of the swivel mechanisms.

Saipem uses the swivel nozzle when it needs to bevel the pipes.

One of the 1.9 m rings Gullco engineered with the KAT travel carriage fitted on the formed KAT track ring. The ring is suspended from the steel banks by swivel mechanisms.

Saipem SpA (www.saipem.eni/it/) needed to cut large diameter pipe that it uses for "driven pile" applications using oxy-fuel torches. The problem was that the pipe had to be cut so that the top was parallel to the horizon just above the waterline of a deep-water project, even though the piles were not always perpendicular to the horizon. The contractor contacted Gullco International Ltd. (www.gullco.com) for assistance.

Gullco engineered a solution that used its Kat Travel Carriage system. This motorized system holds an activated cutting torch or welding gun as it moves on a track laid along any plane of a weld.

However, Gullco needed to modify its travel carriage system in several ways so that the oxy-fuel torches could make horizontal cuts that were not parallel to the top end of the pipe.

First, the company formed the Kat track into 1.9 meter (6.23 ft.) diameter rings. This allowed the carriage to travel around the outside diameter of the pipe. Steel bands were fabricated to support the track rings, and the bands were bolted to the pipe. Then the rings were suspended from the bands, and positioned with an adjustable mechanism and clamping assembly that allowed the travel carriage to swivel so that the torches could cut at an angle other than 90 degrees to the pipe's longitudinal axis.

Driven piles are long and heavy structural elements used for transferring loads through weak soil layers to a suitable bearing layer of soil or rock. The piles are made of wood, metal or concrete and are used for deep foundations, such as deepwater oil and gas drilling and production platforms, excavation support, and docks and wharfs.