Welding Engineering 1

[Rich2001]

How many people in this forum have a degree in Welding Engineering, Metallurgy or Material Science, the IWE or EWE Diploma or have passed the PE exam or equivalent in Welding Engineering? Or is your knowledge in toto "Deweyan," that is "Learn from Doing," without any documented assessment

The reason that I am asking is that recently I reviewed a few WPS that were developed by a Professional Engineer (civil engineer) that only had a rudimental understanding of metallurgy and welding. Granted most welding codes in the USA do not require that the engineer have any special know of welding or metallurgy. It is ashamed that it will most likely take a catastrophic incident or two to change this.

 

[HgTX]

Catastrophic incident? The hundreds of failed connections in the Northridge earthquake led to much improvement in connection design, but no questions were asked about who it was who'd been specifying those connections all along. No one thought to consider the stress risers at the backup bars, the difficulty of inspection of the flange weld right at the web combined with the difficulty of achieving good weld quality right at that location, the choice of consumable, etc., until afterward, and now we have recommendations to solve all those problems but I haven't heard any talk about addressing why those problems were allowed to exist in the first place.

Like just about everyone else I know in charge of reviewing WPSs from the facility owner's side, I have no such degree. I've never been too happy about that. It's not too bad with AWS D1.5 qualification, because at least they have a test to back it up and I can just make sure they're operating within the variables they established, but when it comes down to prequalified procedures, I'm out of my league and have nothing to go on but the consumable manufacturer's limitations on current. (And WPSs already in the file which don't seem to have been causing any problems over the last 10 years.)

Given that there are only a couple of schools in the US that offer welding engineering degrees, and that materials science departments don't concentrate a whole lot on metallurgy, one would be hard-pressed to find a lot of people who do have the qualifications you suggest.

The WPSs I review, by the way, come from various plants and aren't developed by engineers at all, welding or otherwise. They're developed by people in the plants' quality control department who may or may not have any welding background other than CWI qualification.

Though I think someone with lots of shop floor experience would be much better at developing WPSs than some design engineer.

We have found problems in the shop that were WPS-based, and the WPSs had qualification tests to back them up. I don't know if a better background (for me or the plant's welding department) would have allowed anyone to predict these problems or not. Good thing we have pretty rigorous inspection.

Hg

 

[metengr]

Rich2001;
At our company, I am involved with the administration of the Welding/Quality Program that is required to maintain our Certificate of Authorization to repair boiler and pressure vessels grated by the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors.

About 99% of my work involves ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section I and VIII, Div 1 repairs/alterations that kick you back into ASME Section IX for welding. We do have several balance of plant welding procedures that have been qualified under AWS D1.1.

What I have found is that working with Section IX is not that difficult, and does not require an engineering degree. Section IX is like a cookbook in terms of following the requirements to properly qualify a welding procedure specification and to certify welders.

Where I see most problems is personnel that do not know how to select an appropriate filler metal/base metal for a particular application This is where the welding engineer or metallurgical engineering experience is a must. Section IX provides no guidance in which materials to qualify, and appropriate combinations of materials. It is strictly an administrative guideline to assure proper documentation for welding is maintained.

I have had front line personnel attend outside classes on welding to gain experience in knowing how to assure essential variables in welding procedures are followed, and to "ask" the right questions.

 

[pipewelder1999]

I am a welder and have a few years as a CWI. I have dealt with a few mechanical engineers , none of which seemed familar with the codes however they seemed very cautious when making welding related decisions. I have prepared and tested WPS's for many of the normal tasks involvedinboiler andpressure vessel repairs including composite tubes and half bead temper techniques for drum repairs.

I have often wanted to work with a welding engineer just to pick their brain.

There is a big difference between code compliance and designing welds and selecting processes for the application. Legal requirements aside, all of these tasks can be done without a college education in certain situation . None of these can be performed without the knowledge to do them.

I would think one of the keys to making engineering decisions is knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know.


Gerald Austin
Iuka, Mississippi

http://www.weldinginspectionsvcs.com

 

[stanweld]

We have three graduate Welding Engineers and one Metallurgist, all of whom are P.E.s, in our Construction firm. We are responsible for writing welding procedures, defining their use, and implementing new welding process for all of our construction projects. Unfortunately, as we are located in the corporate headquarters, we are not directly involved in the day-to-day implementation of those procedures in the field and problems have been encountered when the inappropriate procedure has been applied for some production welds. In some cases, production management has permitted the welder to make welds without direction with some truly astounding and dire results such as preheating the X-65 base metal to the appropriate temperature, then waiting till cool (ambient < 0 C) before welding with E7010 electrodes and then wondering why the root bead cracked.

Even with providing periodic educational welding seminars, it is difficult to change the mindset of an essentially itinerant work force that has been supplied plenty of misinformation over the years.

 

[Rich2001]

Stanweld, so your firm has all welding P.E.'s (tongue-in-cheek) -- since, only about 2 people take and pass the PE exam in Weld Engineering each year. Is your firm in Ohio since the Weld Engineering PE exam is only offered in Ohio?

Do you think that some certification by AWS, CWB, TWI, IIW, et cetera, is required?

 

[HgTX]

AWS has a Certified Welding Engineer. Does anyone do this?

http://www.aws.org/certification/CWEng/cwenginfo.pdf

Hg

 

[stanweld]

Rich2001
The three Welding Engineering graduates, all from Ohio State, were licensed in accordance with the State's rules and regulations without examination based on experience and previous guidance from other licenced P.E.s. The Metallurgist was licenced in accordance with the State rules and regulations with examination.

I personally don't believe that one should be required to be certified by AWS, etc. I do believe that if one were to perform private practice in the capacity of a Welding Specialist (Engineer), it would be beneficial to that individual to have other certification as a selling tool, especially when his practice extends beyond his home State lines.

 

[Rich2001]

Other than me I personnel know 2 other CWEng's. They work for Edison Welding Institute (EWI) in Columbus, Ohio. As a degreed Mechanical Engineer I thought it was important to document my welding engineering experience. That piece of paper (the CWEng certificate)has proven very handy during quality audits. BTW, I written and passed the PE exams in Mechanical and Welding Engineering, though separate years.

 

[attilon]

Hello everybody!

As I see, the welding issues are taken very differently in the US compared to Europe. According to the new rules, no company will be certified for any welding-type activity, begining with 2005, if they don't have personell that have EWE or IWE Diploma. You can call it globalisation or anything, but it is a natural outcome after creating Euronorm.
The courses are the same in any European country, held by the Welding Institutes of that country, and also the exams are the same. Thus, Welding Engineers from different countries will talk the same language in Europe and also will use the same standards and create the same WPS-es. I am Welding Engineer and right now I am attending an IWE course. There are many things you forget if you don't have to use it in your specific field, also you update your knoledge more efficiently then only reading articles from any welding magazine. I think it is a way that may lead to less problems in welding-related issues. Bye.

 

[stanweld]

attilon,
In the USA, the individual States licence Engineers to practice as Professional Engineers. At this moment, no State regulations that I am aware require sign off of documents by a Welding Engineer and only the State of Ohio has exams in Welding Engineering. Two States, Oklahoma & Alaska, originally required AWS Certified Welding Inspectors to inspect weldments.

In the USA, civil litigation for engineering errors which lead to loss of life or property are directed at those with "deep pockets" - not the individual engineer or engineers who made the error or were highly negligent in their duties. In instances where loss of life has ocurred and for which States require signature of a PE, the PE providing his signature has been found criminally responsible only in a few instances - most of them in California and most involving Civil Engineers.

 

[metengr]

attilon;
What exactly do you mean when you state "no company will be certified for any welding-type activity, begining with 2005, if they don't have personell that have EWE or IWE Diploma". What certification is implied?

Does this effect ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code stamp holders in Europe that design and fabricate boilers and pressure vessels?

 

[Rich2001]

metengr, The standards that attilon is referring to are ISO 3834 & 14731. This is a similar situation to the ISO 9000 fiasco in the early '90s, the USA is behind the eight-ball.

 

[attilon]

metengr;
If your company is ISO or TÜV certified, when they come for the next audit, they will ask for the qualified personell, which also should be documented (and they do not recognize other then EWE or IWE Diploma). You don't show them the man with the Diploma, you're certificate is simply withdrawn. If you have this personell, then they proceed to the real audit.
If you are ASME certified, and your client is happy with your certificate, and with the product you manufacture, then you won't have ISO audit. But, if a client requires ISO or TÜV certificate for your product, then you will want to obtain ISO or TUV certificate, and then you need that personell.

Rich2001;
What do you mean by "the USA is behind the eight-ball."?

 

[Rich2001]

In the USA, one can not obtain the IWE/EWE diploma without going out of country. No university in the USA, as opposite of most industrial countries, offer the IWE program. There is a perception that there is not a need.

Similar in the late 80's, ISO 9000 was looked on something that would not be needed and few companies bothered even to look at the standard, but by 1992 things changed. There was a rush of companies trying to obtain certifications.

Quite a conundrum, n’est-ce pas?

 

[attilon]

As I know, the American Welding Society is member of the International Welding Society, and the IWE Diploma was the idea of IWS. I think it is only a problem of will. I am sure, that there are AWS offices in every state. I think it's about AWS not wanting to accept the teaching methods of the course, as they are also ISO type, ISO-like documented and relying on ISO and EN. Also, the European countries could change the national standards into ISO and EN more easily, but it is more harder to do this in the US.
The US is as big as the whole Europe. After having a unified standard system for Europe, as the US already has its own, I'll want to see how easyly would change Europe its own standard system into something else.

 

[Rich2001]

The IIW IWE diploma is not available in the USA. AWS does participate in the IIW as an Authorized National Body (ANB). However, AWS is currently in an inactive status. Note AWS did issue a few IWE diplomas several years ago via, what IIW refers to as a Transition Arrangement. The transitional Arrangement expired at the end of 2003. The current Inactive Status is due to the fact that no ABET accredited engineering school has seen fit to apply to be an Approved Training Body to deliver the IIW-defined welding engineering curriculum.

There are a gaggle of reasons why no schools have expressed any interest, but chief among them is that the schools fail to see any value in the IWE diploma, and that American industry does not specify the IWE diploma as an essential personnel qualification.

Right now, the rules are still a bit fuzzy with regards to where a USA citizen may go to obtain an IWE diploma. There are courses offered in English in Germany and Canada (they are about 450 hours, maybe three months in duration) but no one has quite figured out if the host country can even issue a diploma to a non-resident.

 

[arcer]

Like many others, although not a degreed welding engineer, welding engineering is a big part of my job. I would say that metengr hit the nail on the head with his comments pertaining to Sec IX. As far as proper selection of filler metal for a given application, fortunately, there are many resources available. As I'm sure you all know, most major consumable manufacturer's have extensive R & D departments, and at least one welding engineer available for consultation. When it comes to the more exotic materials like Hastelloy, or Inconels, excellent guidance is available from their experts. No single welding engineer, degreed or not could possibly match their collective knowledge & experience. In a medium size shop ( 100+ people) like the one I have the privelege of working for, welding engineering can be challenging, and to me it's always interesting. It seems there is always something new coming along, I love it!
I've looked into the AWS program for certifying welding engineers, and any comments anyone has on that program would be of interest to me.
thanks,
John