Antonio Rodrigues

Highly motivated and self-directed

Prepared to adapt to a challenging work environment

Flexible and able to work in a team environment

Organized and detail oriented

Focused under pressure

Maintain physical strength and superior fitness

Offshore welding is important in the fabrication process of sophisticated offshore structures with a wide range of materials such as steels and alloyed steels to withstand the harsh and corrosive environment during the exploitation of oil and gas offshore. In this literature study, offshore welding was investigated in three perspectives such as welding process environment, applicable materials for offshore environment and suitable modern welding technologies for underwater welding of offshore structures. The first finding shows that on-board welding, dry dock welding and underwater welding are the main forms of welding process environment offshore. The second finding also shows that thermo-mechanical control process (TMCP) steels could be used for constructing pipelines and offshore structure. Moreover, materials such as 22 Cr and 25 Cr duplex and 6 Mo stainless steels, nickel base austenitic alloys and titanium alloys could also be used for offshore structures since they possess excellent weldable properties, high fracture toughness, high strength, and can also fight against the corrosive environment offshore. However, the third finding which pertains to suitable modern welding technologies for underwater welding of offshore structures was justified by examining the defects conventional welding processes such as shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), flux-cored arc welding (FCAW), gas metal arc welding (GMAW) and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) have posed on offshore structures and the defects modern welding technologies such as friction stir welding (FSW), laser beam welding (LBW) and Hammerhead “wet-spot” welding could pose on offshore structures. It was therefore evident that underwater welding with conventional welding processes produces more weld joint defects as compared to modern welding technologies. The afore-mentioned finding was further justified by examining the weld joints produced by the said modern welding technologies through tensile test, hardness test and fracture toughness test. It was shown that the strength values of the weld joints in FSW, LBW and Hammerhead “wet-spot” welding were similar to the base materials employed as samples in the experimental welding process. This implies that friction stir welding (FSW), laser beam welding (LBW) and Hammerhead “wet-spot” welding produces fewer or defect-free weld joints and exhibit excellent quality welds as compared to conventional welding processes, hence could serve as suitable modern welding technologies for underwater welding of offshore structures. Keywords: Offshore Welding, Underwater Welding, Modern Welding Technologies, Offshore Structures, and Offshore Materials.

FIELD REPAIR SUPERVISION Mining equipment often requires regular maintenance and repair of various steel structures. Customers often request equipment representatives to help technically supervise critical repairs to insure they are done properly. The following example shows the typical field assignments Mr. Spadoni has performed in various locations such as the US, China, and Canada... Oil Sands Shovel Canada

Pipe Fabrication Project When a project was received to weld flanges on 300 pieces of pipe that were 60 feet long we stood up to the challenge. A complete production line had to be made to move the pipe from one station to the next while insuring that each weld was X-Ray Quality. After Welding the pipe had to be blasted, lined with rubber, and painted. Flanges were welded on by using GMAW .035” for the root pass and FCAW for the fill. Welders worked simultaneously on each end while the pipe was rotated.

Cable Rope Drum Rebuild Project Large cylindrical drums are used to move large diameter cable on mining equipment. The constant movement causes a great wear in the rope grooves. Therefore when the drums are built the surface layer is heat treated to help retard the wear. Eventually the drums will have to be resurfaced with a hardened layer of material. Therefore a projects was started to come up with a welding electrode and procedure to perform this type of heat treatable weld buildup. Finally through the efforts of good electrode suppliers and engineers a heat treatable electrode was developed. Steel cable wraps around the drum following these grooves. A type of centerline Cracking/Tearing constantly failed the test blocks. Micro of Tear

This large bridge was build for the Chicago area and uses two large arches as seen in the photo. The arches are made from 44” diameter sections of pipe which had to be welded together to meet AWS Bridge code requirements. The job was audited by city and customer inspectors. • Damien Avenue Bridge Project Large diameter pipe segments welded together make up the arch of the bridge.

When a historical amount of X-Rays were being rejected for large amounts of Tungsten inclusions, the root cause and solution had to be found. Dozens of variables presented themselves but with a close collaboration with the welders the source of the problems were found to be both technique and equipment related. • Weld Parameters Issue Several X-Ray Quality welds on large Aluminum Heat Exchanger made to ASME Section VIII and IX. Using sophisticated software the output wave of the machine could be analyzed to find that several voltage and current spikes were being experienced in older machines.

Underwater welding, as the name implies is the process of welding offshore structures where the presence of water is prominent. Underwater welding processes are often carried out in either the splash zone or the deep water zone. The splash zone is a shallow depth level covered intermittently by water as a result of movement of tidal waves of the water. It has been observed that, most offshore repairs and maintenance work are carried out in the splash zone due to the frequent occurrence of collision between ship, barges, vessels and platforms [10]. On the other hand, deep water zone describes the region about 1000m below the surface of the water [24]. Current research has shown that arc welding processes have been used at water depth of 2,500m [16]. Collision rate in this region is very rare since pipelines installed in this region are far from the water surface. A defect such as rusting is rather usual in this region since the environment is severely corrosive. Even though repairs and maintenance works in deep water region seem tedious, underwater welding happens to be of extensive economical merits, because welding in this region surpasses the need to pull out defective structures underwater to the water surface for dry docking or on-board welding, hence it is cost effective and time saving [10]. On the other hand, underwater welding involves a lot of risk and challenges. The operation conditions are very tough and severe [4] resulting in higher pressures [10] of about 0.1MPa or 1bar for each 10m increase in depth [25]. Structures in this region are therefore prone to metallurgical changes due to the cold temperature of the water. Research has shown that, the difficulties in underwater welding is as the result of the presence of hydrogen in the weld, higher cooling rates and higher water ambient pressure [26, 27]. The tendency of explosion could occur since arcs produced could evolve as a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen pockets. Additionally, the health of divers is of high risk since nitrogen could be diffused into the blood stream [10]. However, owing to the merits and demerits of underwater welding both in the splash zone and in deep water zones, classifying underwater welding is of a great necessity. It provides the means to select suitable welding processes for the right class of underwater welding. In this regard, it is very relevant to note that, not all underwater welding classes are suitable for a particular welding

 B.S. in Welding Engineering Technology, with a dual major in Business, Utah State University, June 7, 1994. • A.S. Welding Technology, Glendale College, Glendale Ca., June 1991. TRAINING / SKILLS / CERTIFICATES • Training: ISO9000 auditing, Total Quality Management, Product Development, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), MSHA(Mine Safety and Hazard Admin.) • Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, Autocad, BAAN, E-Matrix, ect... • 8 Year Member of American Welding Society(AWS) • Completed 2 year Welder Certificate Program, Glendale College-1991. • Certified in First Aid and CPR.