If you work with metals, whether you are a business owner, a design engineer, an inspector or a welder, you have heard the terms yield strength and tensile strength. In welding, we seem to focus more on tensile strength than on yield strength. When we match a filler metal to a base metal we do […]
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon along with several other elements in small quantities, all of which have an impact on its properties. Steels can contain varying amounts of carbon and are typically categorized as low, medium or high carbon steels. Low carbon steels are those containing 0.30% carbon or less. Medium carbon […]
High strength steels are becoming more and more popular in steel construction. Higher strength means we can reduce the thickness of the base material and thus reduce weight. This is very important not just in vehicles but in static structures as well. However, higher strength steels usually bring about a few issues that if not […]
In a perfect world parts would fit together perfectly every time. However, as we all know, this isn’t the case. We mostly think of poor fit up as something that annoys welders but which they can compensate for. But the reality is it can have tremendous impact on your bottom line. Or, in many cases, […]
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 […]
Macro etch tests are commonly done as part of qualification tests for welders and welding procedures. This test is relatively easy to do and does not require complex or expensive equipment. However, very few fabricators ever perform this test. A macro etch test can serve as verification that a change on how something is welded […]
When it comes to fillet welds, bigger is not always better. A fillet weld is easy to measure, simply take out your fillet weld gauges and measure it. However, there is an incorrect assumption that a bigger weld (as measured with a fillet gauge) is always stronger than a smaller weld. Before we get into […]
Cracks on welds are never good. Welding codes always have allowances for porosity, undercut, weld sizes, and even weld profiles. However, there is never an allowance for cracks. Being a linear discontinuity, a crack will tend to propagate through the weld and into the base metal with relative ease, especially in cyclically loaded structures. So […]
In our previous post we explained how to determine the strength of a transverse fillet weld. A transverse fillet weld is one that is perpendicular to an applied load. We will now look at how to determine the strength of a fillet weld under shear stress. If the load applied is not perfectly perpendicular to […]
