Development of Welding Codes

Unfortunately, many of the rules and regulations that are in place today were developed after serious injuries and fatalities occurred. If a structure or weldment can lead to people being injured or killed or property being damaged or destroyed, there is a very high likelihood that rules and regulations exist to prevent and lessen the severity of fabrication failures.

What is a welding code or standard? Welding codes and welding standards are generally a document or set of documents that present requirements and suggestions for welding. This includes requirements for base materials and consumables used in welding, the joint design, qualification of welding procedures, and qualification of welders and welding operators, for example. These welding codes and standards then become enforceable by law, contract, or both. To protect people from injury and death, local, state, and federal laws dictate that certain structures be built to the requirements of a code or standard. In other cases, the customer who is paying for a fabrication will put the code or standard into the contract. These customers have their own needs, such as obtaining insurance to operate and use the fabrication being contracted once it is completed or after a repair is performed.

Societies such as the American Welding Society (AWS) and the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) are groups composed of experts from industry, government, and individuals with interest in the society. Both AWS and ASME develop welding codes based on a consensus of experts. These societies hold regular meetings and have a process for maintaining and developing codes, including ways for welders and others to ask questions and provide feedback on codes and standards.

Welding codes are also written by other groups such as the Washington Association of Building Officials (WABO) for construction, the American Petroleum Institute (API) for oil pipelines, the ABS for mostly commercial vessels, and the US government, such as with Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) welding codes for the US Navy.

The fabrications that welders create throughout Washington state and the world support our way of life and allow our economies to function. These welding codes are written and maintained because welders, industry, and the public all have an interest in safe buildings, bridges, ships, and other fabricated objects encountered in day-to-day life. People expect to enter and leave buildings without injury, travel over bridges that don’t fail, sail on ships that don’t explode or sink, and in general go about their lives around town and the country without being injured or killed by a fabrication.

Basics of Welding Codes

Welding codes are generally grouped by application and material used. AWS groups their standards this way, with the application and the material specified in the code title, such as D1.1 for Structural Steel and D1.2 for Structural Aluminum. A committee is responsible for each code; for instance, the AWS D1.1 and D1.2 committees write and maintain these codes, respectively. There is also the AWS D1.5 for Bridge Welding and the D17.1 for Aerospace Fusion Welding, which are also application-specific. There are numerous codes and standards that exist for many different applications and materials.

The application and materials are going to be major factors in how the code or standard is written with respect to allowable tolerances as well as how many and how strict the requirements are. Welding codes and standards generally need to cover the following topics:

• the purpose of and where to apply the code,
• how to submit questions and feedback,
• how to handle grievances,
• definitions of key terms,
• joint design requirements,
• qualification and requirements of welding consumables,
• qualification and requirements of Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS),
• qualification and requirements of welders and welding operators,
• inspection requirements, and
• other topics.

Let’s go over the items presented above in more detail.

The Purpose of and Where to Apply the Code

It is very important that the code states where and how it is used so the users of the code know if they are applying it correctly. If you are welding structural steel, you should not use the structural aluminum code. In practice, some welding codes reference other welding codes, but as a welder working off of a WPS, you will receive the final WPS and not see how the WPS was written.

How to Submit Questions and Feedback

Users of the code need to know how to submit questions and feedback to the code committees. Welding is a very diverse profession, and the committee can’t possibly think of every situation that exists when the code is written or anticipate new situations or technologies that welders will use in the future. Providing committee contact information and having a process for people to interact with the committee allows for the code to be reconsidered and revised to address the needs of the welding industry.

How to Handle Grievances

Unfortunately for some welders and welding operators, things don’t always go as planned or they don’t arrive at the desired result. In these cases, welders and welding operators may have their certifications taken away for a wide variety of reasons, such as failing to produce quality welds. When a user of the code is negatively affected by the code, it is important to have a process to have their grievance heard and processed fairly. Welding codes typically have instructions for how to submit grievances and a description of the process for how they are handled by the society or organization that maintains and develops the welding code.

Definitions of Key Terms

Welding by a code or standard can occur all over the world. Even within your own state, the language used can vary not only in different regions but also in the same location but among different industries. Terms the shipping industry uses could have different meanings than the terminology known by structural welders, petroleum industry welders, or pressure vessel and pressure piping welders.

The codes will either list important terms and their definitions or point to a reference of important terms and definitions, such as AWS A3.0M/A3.0 Standard Welding Terms and Definitions, Including Terms for Adhesive Bonding, Brazing, Soldering, Thermal Cutting, and Thermal Spraying.

Joint Design Requirements

Not every welded joint configuration will lead to a successful weld in service. For instance, it would be difficult for a welder to successfully weld a butt joint that has a narrow included angle (opening) on a thick piece of material. The narrow opening limits the angle at which the electrode and/or filler material can be applied. In cases like this that would likely lead to failure, the welding code or standard may put requirements on the size and configuration of a weld joint.

Qualification and Requirements of Welding Consumables

As a welding student, you will most likely encounter shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) consumables, more commonly called stick electrodes, such as E-6010 and E-7018 (see Chapter 8). These welding electrodes are commonly used in the structural steel industry, which is why they are introduced to you in school. These electrodes have requirements that must be followed in order for an electrode manufacturer to put the E-6010 or E-7018 designation on it and state that it conforms to a standard. When manufacturers create electrodes to code specifications, welders can use electrodes from different suppliers and still be confident that the electrode will help produce a quality weld.

Qualification and Requirements of Welding Procedure Specifications

The requirements for a particular fabrication you are making will be included in a WPS, which is a document that specifies everything that a welder or welding operator needs to know about the materials, joints, machine settings, and positioning to create a weld. Before a WPS can be used for welding, it must be qualified according to the requirements of the welding code or standard. The welding code will specify the requirements to qualify a WPS for use in welding. Once a WPS is qualified it means there is at least one welder or welding operator that successfully completed a weldment using that WPS.

An important point to make about a WPS is that it cannot be improvised without getting permission from the original writer. Every piece of information is placed on the WPS for a reason, and it must be followed unless it is not mandatory.

Qualification and Requirements of Welders and Welding Operators

Once a single welder has successfully created a weldment by passing code-required destructive testing, which leads to the qualification of a WPS, it is then possible to qualify welders to that WPS in case more than one welder is needed. The welding code provides the requirements for welder and welding operator qualification. Throughout your career as a certified welder, you will take welding certification tests for different materials, material shapes, welding positions, filler materials, and welding processes, such as SMAW or gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW).

Inspection Requirements

Inspection is the act of reviewing a weldment based on a set of criteria, its requirements, in a particular manner outlined in the applicable code(s). Inspection requirements are important in checking welds to see that they were made in accordance with a WPS as well. The code will specify how the welds shall be inspected. When qualifying a WPS or a welder or welding operator, codes will most likely specify destructive testing (DT) and destructive examination (DE) in addition to any visual or other nondestructive examination (NDE).

Destructive tests destroy the weld that was made to perform tests on its material properties. This may include tensile, charpy V-notch, and bend tests (see Chapter 19 for more information on weld inspections). Nondestructive testing does not destroy the weld and includes visual inspection, radiography, ultrasound, and other tests.

Typically, testing refers to only the test itself while examination is meant to include both the testing and examination of the results. This would be an important difference in the case where a third-party testing lab performed the tests but the people paying for the destructive test examine and interpret the results against a set of code requirements. As welders and welding operators, you may see or hear DT and DE used in conversations about destructive testing and examination.

Other Topics

The world of welding is diverse, and so are the welding codes themselves. Welding codes will have other specific requirements to meet the needs of its industry and application.

Uses of Welding Codes in Industry Today

The image of the ferry operated by Washington State Ferries at the beginning of this chapter was chosen because ships are an excellent example of different welding codes and standards working together. The ABS governs the rules and standards for building the ferry and its welds. However, rather than rewrite a standard for the structural portion of the ship, ABS references the AWS structural codes. Likewise, rather than rewrite a standard for the pressure piping and boilers on the ship, ABS references the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC). This means that welders who are building a ferry for Washington State Ferries may have to be qualified to ABS, AWS, and ASME standards—depending upon what part of the ship they are building and possibly what the welding engineer will accept if the underlying code allows the welding engineer to evaluate qualifications.

Ferries are just one example of an iconic fabrication for Washington state, but there are many others. Each industry will use welding codes because they are required by law, contract, or both. As a welder or welding operator, you will get qualified to a welding code if required to perform work. Most of the welding code certification tests are similar when it comes to joint types and welding positions. But usually there are small differences in the requirements, such as how much undercut or weld reinforcement you are allowed to have.

If you have a chance to take a welding certification test at your school, such as a WABO test, it is highly recommended that you do so because you will be more prepared to take the welding certification test that the industry of your career requires. Check with your employer to see if they pay for the certification tests or if there is an amount that you need to pay.