During the welding of carbon and alloy steel components, there are certain very familiar, well published weld defects which could crop up.

Ask any welder, welding supervisor or welding engineer why these happen, and one can be very sure of a prompt answer covering aspects like cleanliness of the weld zone, prior to welding, insufficient preheat, lack of interpass temperature maintenance, incorrect size of the electrode, incorrect electrodes, incorrect welding technique, improper cleaning of the weld layers before subsequent welding,.. etc... as the likely cause for such problems.

If all these aspects were so well understood, then why should we be still hearing about weld defects? What stands out among the above reasons for weld defects, is the fact that all these are welder controllable and normally there is no reason to look outside to solve these problems.

The solution clearly points to improving welder discipline, increasing awareness of the technological consequences of the weld defects and perhaps, reducing the pressures of urgency on the welder by the organinsational hierarchy.

-Excerpted from WRI Journal of July-September 1998, Vol.19 No.3