In today’s article we’ll be discussing a critical aspect of welding which is crucial in ensuring the safety and long useful life of structures. When engineers conduct a fitness for service analysis of structures they are looking for flaws. These flaws may be cracks, loose bolts, deformations, rust damage (thinning of structural members) and other […]
There are four types of loading experienced by welds and welded structures. These types of loading are a function of the strain rate (the rate at which deformation occurs in a material due to an applied load) and the number of loading cycles experienced by the welded member. The 4 types of loading are: Static […]
Weld failures happen all the time. Some are more serious than others in terms of cost and potential for property damage and bodily harm. If a weld failure is considered serious it typically gets a lot of attention. Forensics labs and industry experts get called to determine the root cause of the failure. It may […]
Distortion caused by the heating and cooling cycles of welding is extremely problematic. It can place structures out of dimensional tolerance creating costly rework. In some cases parts need to be scrapped. Understanding the causes of distortion and the properties of the metal being welded are an absolute necessity for those managing welding operations. There […]
If you work with AWS D1.1 you are probably familiar with the use of prequalified welding procedures. The use of prequalified WPSs provides many benefits to the fabricator, one of which is costs savings due being exempt from having to perform costly testing to qualify the welding procedure. However, if you are looking to save […]
If you own, run or work at a welding facility you have undoubtfully had to troubleshoot bad welds. Troubleshooting is necessary in order to solve problems, but if you do not have a clear methodology or process for troubleshooting it can be a huge source of downtime. To properly troubleshoot bad welds, we must have […]
Quality and cost go hand in hand, or at least they should. Poor quality may be cheap during the fabricating process, but very costly when it comes to warranty repairs and potentially losing customers. Many of the companies we work with have seen substantial cost reductions when we help them address quality concerns. For the […]
The ability to write and/or interpret welding symbols is essential for many welding industry professionals including welders, supervisors, CWIs, welding engineers, estimators, QC personnel and more. Yet, less than 5% of the customers we consult with have at least a basic understanding of welding symbols. Welding symbols communicate vital information to the welder. It allows […]
The ability to develop welding procedures for aluminum and aluminum alloys coupled with the ability to weld these alloys is becoming even more important for fabricators. Whether it is a job shop producing different products every day or a firm that specializes in a single product, the ability to fabricate out of aluminum is necessary. […]
The design of pressure vessels is quite interesting. At first it may appear extremely complicated. Then, you learn the basics of pressure vessel design and realize it is not that big of a deal. But, then you get into all variations of vessel heads and shells, the different kinds of loading conditions (it’s not just […]
