Welding Wide Flange Splices 4

[sedonas]

When you weld two wide flange together by cutting them square... would it make sense to further strengthen the web by putting cover plates over the web? Or over the flange?The purpose of flange is for tension and compression.. the web is supposed to be only for shear? Which to focus more in welding.. But if you weld cover plates on the flange.. won't it weaken the flange by having many welded regions.. how do you weld your splices (that involves no bolted connection)?

 

[sedonas]

In other words.. a 6011 with low current and a 6013 with high current would be equivalent?

And a bigger 1/8 6013 would be stronger than a smaller 3/32 6013?

Because when welding thinner 1.7mm Cee section with 4.5mm angle bar.. it seems to take long. Since we are in charge of budget.. we can dictate what we want.. so if he can make the currents lower as he said.. can I give him the 6011? Or is 6011 with low currents functions differently than 6013 with high current? He is asking now. I need to decide. Please tell me now. I can't read AWS D1.1 in one reading now since it would take days.

In a nutshell. What ingredients are 6011 and 6013 made of that makes them differs? does one conduct more and lower resistance hence stronger?

Thanks.

 

[gtaw]

Both electrode meet the minimum requirement of producing a weld with a tensile strength of at least 60 ksi.

The flux covering on E6010 and E6011 have cellulose based coverings that decompose in the presence of the high temperature arc and liberate plenty of hydrogen. The hydrogen produces a deep penetrating aggressive arc.

The E6013 is a rutile base flux covering. It does not liberate as much hydrogen as the E6010 or E6011, but still enough hydrogen that it cannot be classified as low hydrogen.

The depth of fusion only has to be sufficient to ensure the weld is completely fused to the base metal.

Your welder should not be welding with "sun glasses". The lens is not dark enough and his face is exposed to the ultraviolet radiation. The poor bugger probably cannot see the weld pool after a few seconds of arc time, burning the skin (sun burn) and causing permanent damage to both skin and eyesight over time. It is little wonder the weld quality suffers.

Any tradesman needs to have the proper tools to do the job properly, quickly, and safely. This fellow has a loaded gun, but the barrel is pointed at his own head!

Best regards - Al

 

[sedonas]

Thanks for the tips about ultraviolet. Ill get shades for myself because i observe the welding too from afar under sun.

About welder. 99% of welders in our country wears sfuff like it. Remember their $15 daily wage is to support their family including schools. It explains why most dont have extra money after each weekend. Much less to buy any protective gears.

Thanks so much gtaw and others. I wonder what is the cheapest welding tester unit like ultrasonic or eddy current etc one can afford (like you guys) so i can personally test the weld fusion and penetration integrity.

 

[moltenmetal]

The very cheapest unit is your own eyes and a little research about what to look for. No weld you'd posted a picture of here so far would pass visual examination.

 

[andriver]

+1 from GTAW regarding eye protection. Please stop saying $15/daily wage. It should be the contractors responsibility that everyone on the jobsite is working safely. Eye protection is essential to welding, and sun glasses are not sufficient. You should also not be watching welds be made without eye protection, no matter how badly you want to look. You WILL suffer flash burn, which is like sun burning your eyes. The welder's eyesight is not worth the money (or any money for that matter) you all pay. This whole thread makes me not want to visit your country. Also, "engineering" being conducted by obviously unqualified people, and using this site as an RFI for an on-going project is not ethical.

 

[sedonas]

Oh. When the welder did full weld. They covered their faces with their a shirt wrapped around the face. This is the common sight of welders you will see in every building being constructed.. very rare will you see any welding protective gear.. The following were the old welders who did the wide flange splice using 6011:

In a welding arc, isn't that the spectrum distribution is like blackbody radiation.. so the ultraviolet component is just very small.. or nonexistent.. what's the value of ultraviolet in an arc?

 

[moltenmetal]

Welding arcs are RICH in UV radiation! Caucasians like me get sunburns on their arms from welding if we don't cover up. And when you get a sunburn on your eyes, it HURTS- it's happened to me.

Light reflected from an arc is much less rich in in UV.

Plastic glasses may or may not block the damaging UV. The same goes with glass sunglasses. I've run spectra of these personally and found some that are amazing at blocking visible light but let in the entire 300-380 nm UV band. But that shirt wrapped around their head is no special protection against UV. Every hole in the weave you're looking through is letting unattenuated UV light right into their eyes.

Look- somebody is building a structure there. Whoever that is, has some money. Money is coming from somewhere to rent welders and buy consumables, as well as to pay you whatever you're being paid. Take some of that money and buy a few of the old-fashioned drop-down welding masks- they cost virtually nothing. It will not only reduce the number of people with cataracts later in life who will be cursing you because they can't afford corneal transplants and are blind- it will also GREATLY improve the ability of the welders to see what the hell they're doing while they're welding! Welding blind is impossible, and that's what these guys are trying to do!

 

[sedonas]

I paid the contractor (he hired his welders) over $10,000 for the job. This is what they gave me. I am learning what is the proper welding technique and principles so I can know if what they are doing are normal in the industry and how spread these style is.

Well. I'll check the high rise and other buildings in the metropolis to see what welding techniques and style they use.. and then I'll know whether my contractor and his welders are the normal.

Many thanks for the assistance especially gtaw and others. I'll read AWS D1.1 while watching the contractors and their welders do it.

 

[moltenmetal]

OK - I assumed you were an engineer hired by the owner as a construction manager!

Mister Owner, I suggest a) you hire some competent and trustworthy engineering and construction management advice if you don't want your building to fall down and b) since the welders you're hiring are poor (in both economics and skills terms), it is in your interest to equip them properly so they do a good job for you.

 

[Brad805]

Paying cash for any workers is never going to work. You need some fundamental changes in your country. Owners in North America never have to go to this effort. In fact, if they did many people would be fired and they would be in court fighting for years. Nonetheless, this has been a very interesting discussion and exposure to the methods in another country. I am very pleased not to have to deal with such problems.

 

[sedonas]

This is the hierarchy of construction here. Owner deals with contractors. The contractors workers boss is their contractor. I had several times at odds with the workers because they won't follow my direction (they listen to their boss only). Construction hire engineers to check the project. But the engineers is as bad as them. The engineers salaries are even lower at only $10 a day (our average daily wage is $10) and these engineers don't even know the meaning of moments so consistently I'm always at odds at them for not following development length for example.

Yes. I should have hired competent construction manager. The contractor got my $10,000 already before writing this thread and realizing their bad job. They won't even return to fix any saying the job is finished. The contractor spent about $7,000 on materials. He earns about $2000. Paid his welder foreman about $1000. The foreman distribute the $1000 to himself, his welders and workers.. that's how each worker ended up with $15 a day.

About equipping the welders directly. They won't listen and not even aware what is ultraviolet. The worker I talked to thought it was some kind of color.

I have a new problem now. They will be sawing many Hardieflex cement boards using ordinary grinder starting tomorrow for a week. I told them the dusts are dangerous to the lungs and need some kind of vacuum. They told me they have been doing it for dozens of years and they can manage and thought I was crazy for suggesting vacuum which the contractor never owned.. So now I cant even go to the job site with all dusts flying around me. If I don't go there. I won't see their work. So I'm thinking of spraying the floor each morning with water to make the cement board dusts go down the drain. I also have nose masks but I don't have oxygen mask so still very nervous about this all.

Maybe you guys think Hardiflex dusts are harmless to the lungs. Please convince me so my nervousness would be gone. Thank you!

 

[TLHS]

James Hardy has a best practices document for safety when using silica based fibre cement board:

http://arc-architectural.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/JH7861_BESTPRACTICE_FA_LR.pdf

They also have installation instructions for each specific product, along with safety information, on their webpage.

 

[Brad805]

Is it genuine James Hardie or some knock off from China? If the later, you are on your own. If James Hardie they have guidelines and best practices at

http://www.jameshardie.com.au/uploads/file/201408141ed827-Best Practice - August 2014.pdf.

I have cut it with simple mask outdoors. Long sleeves are better because of the fineness of the dust. Unless your saw is equipped with an appropriate deflector to collect the dust in a vacuum I am not sure how effective it will be. There are many saws with such deflectors, but I doubt they are in the budget based on what you have described thus far. A vacuum for this work is also quite expensive if you want it to last. The dust is incredibly hard on vacuums. We take these things fairly seriously because of the quantity of lawyers and the risk one can assume. Most owners would ask about their risk exposure.

We hold back money to avoid some of the welder problems you are dealing with. Most subtrades must wait at 45d after they are finished for the last 10% of their funds. They also must provide evidence they paid their sub trades. That protects an owner from a lien. I am having a hard time believing you cannot find qualified welders in your country. We do not hear of enough collapses to support such a conclusion. Did you hire on the basis of cost alone? If so, you must shoulder some of the blame. There is a lot of truth to the one poster that said, "pay peanuts, get nuts." Does this society

http://www.indonesianweldingassociation.org

or

https://www.facebook.com/Indonesia-Welding-Engineering-Association-242127899148143/

list members one can hire that are something more than a guy that learned to weld by practice alone?

 

[Ron]

Hey gtaw....go back and copy and paste all your replies in this thread into a Word document and you'll have the first couple of chapters of a good book! Nice explanations...all.

 

[sedonas]

Yes. I requested James Hardie cement boards but they dont follow any precautions so i think ill just avoid the site for a week and hope it rains next week to remove all the dusts.

Im sorry. My location is really the Philippines. I mentioned Indonesia because want to be anonymous and just interested in the principles but since the industry is involved then have to say its the Philippines.

Many architects avoid steel structure precisely because of poor welding practice. So most of our buildings are purely reinforced concrete.

I found out we have the Philippines Welding Society.. they are associated with Tesla welding schools. My old welders were all graduates of the schools. Only mostly poor workers enrolled in it to find any jobs. If you know one good welder in the Philippines US standard gtaw grade. Pls let me know. I still cant find a good repair team to repair the splice or any confidence. Tnx

 

[Brad805]

Best I could suggest is to post a comment on one of the schools like this.

https://www.facebook.com/HEATS.Inc/

I have never met a welder that did not take great pride in their ability to put down a nice bead.

Your fabrication process is very different from ours. Almost 80 - 90% of our steel work is welded in huge shops that are highly automated. Every piece of steel is detailed and approved by the engineer (qualified) prior to any fabrication. Each piece is clearly marked and they provide a erection drawings. We use bolted connections as much as we can because the site crews are too expensive. The crews you have seem only qualified to turn a spud wrench. If you do this again, I would find a fabricator from China or somewhere else that details the structure properly before shipping to site. A vast amount of structural steel from North America is detailed in China or India now, so finding qualified persons for that is easy in those countries. The process you have now seems to blur who is responsible for what.

I agree with Ron, gtaw has been very helpful to many reading this thread.

 

[sedonas]

Here's the worker cutting Hardieflex board a while ago and directly inhaling the dusts (he only covers his head from the sun but his nose and mouth open):

I told him inhaling the hardieflex dusts from cutting is dangerous.. but he just laughed saying he has done it for several years. He is the same welder who wear shades welding. Note our welders are mostly common workers so they also do other jobs like cutting and installing hardieflex, etc..

The shot was taken using a CCTV camera at the site. I'm afraid to visit it directly now.

I'd like to know how long can silica stay airborned before they fall to ground by gravity. I can't find this in any web sites. I need to know so I can estimate how long before they settle by gravity and the floor can be decontaminated by spraying water. And does wet cleaning means simply using water hose to wet the ground to let the dusts flow the drain? Is this effective? Do the dusts stay at the walls too or surface of object? Because we can't wet the entire floor due to bare steel still to be primered or cut.

This is my immediate priority now in addition to bad welding because I can't visit the place unless I know effective ways to remove the dusts before I step inside. Thank you.

 

[Brad805]

Why are you not kicking him off the site? He who signs the cheques makes the rules. If you want him to wear a mask, and you provide it, he should wear it and be quiet. This is very disrespectful to an owner.

 

[sedonas]

Because we owners deal with contractors.. we don't interact directly with workers... they won't listen to us, they have their ways. And the contractors don't believe inhaling hardiflex dusts is hazardous himself.. because he inhales them too..

I have to let the caretaker wet the entire floor early at morning.. but would this remove all the silica?

But note that even when chipping concrete.. there are silica released.. and even mixing cement would release silica.. so the hazard is everywhere.. maybe they are so used to it that it become desensitized.

 

[sedonas]

This is the only respirator (half face with the paint cartridge) available at a large depot. I got it to take a peek at the fillet welding (2 pictures shown below). I researched for over 2 hours about the difference between particulate respirator and vapor protection respirator.. logically.. you can use vapor respirator to avoid Hardiflex dusts but it seems there is a reason it can't and I couldn't find it at any web site. Wikipedia says:

"For maximum efficiency of particle removal and to decrease resistance to airflow through the filter, particulate filters are designed to keep the velocity of air passing through the filter medium as low as possible. This is achieved by manipulating the slope and shape of the filter to provide larger surface area."

I can't find the scientific reason why vapor respirator can't be used for particulate.. any idea why?

below are the welds that connect a 1.7mm C section with a 4mm angle bar done by the new welder (with over 10 yrs experience trained by the Philippines Welders Society affiliates). how do you tell if there is weld penetration (a few regions enough to take the load isn't it).. it may look ugly but if there is weld fusion.. it is enough to join the filler metal and base metals molecularly... (edit: done using 6013 stick with using SMAW (Shielded Metal Arc Welding which is the only one available locally)