50 Years Experience of the EO Paton Electric Welding Institute in Field of Electron Beam Welding

Studying the possibilities of electron beam welding (EBW) and the principles of construction of equipment for electron beam welding, led by academician Boris Evgenyevich Paton, began at the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute (PWI) in 1958. It resulted in development of the first laboratory-scale plant and welding of different small workpieces. One year later the method of electron beam welding turned out to be in great demand: in nuclear power engineering, in production of electric vacuum devices and liquid-fuel rocket engines. In 1961-1962 owing to effective coordination of work performed at government level, the first production machines for electron beam welding were put into operation at a number of branch enterprises. Within the next few years, application of electron beam welding became wider, first of all in the above mentioned industries, and simultaneously electron beam welding began to be accepted by aircraft and power engineering industry. In 1960-s PWI organized in Ukraine full-scale production of power units, developed by it (guns, power sources and control systems) on the basis of Sumy Factory of Electron Microscopes. 72 complete sets of power source units of SP-30 type (25 kV, 500 mA), 330 complete sets of U-250A (30 kV, 450 mA), 320 complete sets of ELA-60 (60 kV, 250, 500 and 1000 mA) and ELA-120 (120 kV, 1000 mA) were manufactured in different periods of time. On October 16th 1969 the first test of electron beam welding and cutting of metals was carried out in "Soyuz-6" spaceship, that practically initiated the space technology. Testing was performed in Vulkan unit developed by PWI. Considering that in space X-radiation and difficulties with high-voltage insulation could eliminate the possibility of electron beam application, low accelerating voltage (not higher than 8 kV) was used.