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 […]
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 […]
The following is an exerpt from: TROUBLESHOOTING FOR NON-WELDING ENGINEERS There is nothing wrong with concave welds so long as they attain the desired throat dimension. AWS D1.1/D1.1M:2020 Structural Welding Code (Steel) states that “there is no restriction on concavity as long as minimum weld size (considering both leg and throat) is achieved.” Concave welds […]
One of the first steps in analyzing cracks to find their root cause and take corrective action is to categorize the cracks. We categorize cracks based on three elements. Location Direction Timing In today’s article we discuss the importance of crack location when trying to determine what caused it. What follows is an excerpt from […]
Troubleshooting of welds and other welding problems increases costs in welding, causes delays and affects weld quality. Even a moderate understanding of welding problems, their symptoms, causes and potential solutions can help tremendously. The more informed you are the better. To successfully troubleshoot and fix welding discontinuities, welding defects and other welding problems we need […]
High carbon steels are those containing 0.45% carbon or higher. They are typically considered “hard to weld” because they are crack sensitive and are susceptible to undergoing significant changes in their physical and mechanical properties after welding. However, high carbon steels can be welded successfully and without problems by having a sound understanding of the […]
Our previous article discussed the importance of having a specification for weld quality. In this article we’re talking about the importance of one of its basic components: Welding Procedure Specifications (WPSs). Many fabricators don’t have WPSs. They rely in the experience of their welders to select the right parameters. As much as we want every […]
Can our selection of shielding gas affect the strength of a weld and other important mechanical properties? Absolutely! The difference is more pronounced when using flux-cored (FCAW) wires than when using mig (GMAW) wires, especially as the wire’s tensile strength goes up. Although we can affect strength by using different gases, what we should be […]
In our previous two articles we talked about categorizing cracks based on when they occur and in which direction they propagate. Today on our third and final article on understanding why your welds crack we look at the importance of location. If you want to review or if you missed our previous two articles simply […]
