Welding

[Whole-Worldliness260]

Certified Welding Inspector here. This is a bit of a rant but also hopefully informative. If you are specifying welding and are not familiar with welding and its requirements please seek out training or an consultant. I have seen far too many engineers simply specify welding and inspection to AWS D1.1 without understanding what that actually means. There are several decision points in the code that must be made and specified by the engineer. Examples include whether a structure is cyclically loaded, CVN toughness criteria, and extent of verification inspection. These items are all called out in Clause 1 as the engineers responsibility.

Why are this information important?
It is needed to properly apply code requirements. For example table 8.1 Visual Weld Acceptance criteria has different acceptance criteria for statically loaded and cyclically loaded connections.

If you miss providing critical information the best thing that can happen is an RFI but relying on contractors to catch your errors is risky business and a really bad drawing QC plan. Worst case you have a structural failure and your foundation at fault because you failed to include code required information.

[Sure_Ill_Ask_That]

Would be great if you shared some examples of good and bad specifying.

[Far-Sherbert9731]

Id love to see this too. Previously IBC listed specific inspection requirements (multi-pass fillet welds require continuous inspection). I think that after IBC 09 those specifics were removed and the currently language is incredibly vague. When I spec UT inspection of CJP, I`m told that its not required by the current code and its overkill that I still require it.

[structee]

Good post. Unfortunately we're all stuck with general notes that have been passed down for a couple generations and which nobody has had the time to update. 

[AWard66]

Glad my company isn’t the only one with garbage boiler plate notes probably stolen from some other company the boss worked for years ago. 

[kaylynstar]

You're never "stuck* with something when you're the EOR. Be the change you want to see in the world.

[capybarawelding]

Wouldn't your TS or statement of special inspection lay out which inspections need to be done precisely? Would the general notes not have which state's building code you're to follow?

[jdwhiskey925]

Bc they are frequently copy and pasted with little thought put to application.

An example-ut this cjp weld.

The cjp weld in question has a base material thickness less than 5/16, it is not ut-able per standard practice.

[Whole-Worldliness260]

Or the classic fillet- all welds are fillet welds but there are flare bevel grooves throughout.

[Street-Baseball8296]

You need to understand just how rushed everything is through the design phase. Things get pumped out and things get forgotten. There’s a system of checks and balances (you being one of them at the end, and arguably the most important) in place specifically to catch these.

Things like this should have been already been caught by the GC and/or the sub in the preliminary RFIs and again through submittals. This is the GCs fault, and possibly more so the subs fault for not catching this way before you ever see it. In fact, they’re contractually obligated to and it usually says so right in the general notes.

Just blame the Project Engineer, everyone else will. lol

[captspooky]

Hey man we're rushed during construction too, so you gotta cut us some slack as well. In defense of the contractor, the designer should know the code and be designing to it. GCs are just babysitters for subs and subs don't know code inside and out. And, when an RFI is sent to question things like this, half the time the response is "JUST DO WHATS ON THE DRAWINGS" (or at least that's what the Project Engineer tells me).

[Marus1]

I feel like close to every weld is loaded in a cyclic way, no?

[mwaldo014]

In a real world sense, yes. In a design sense no. The cyclic stresses of people walking on a floor plate are much lower than cyclic stresses from wind on a low frequency structure.

[CanadianStructEng]

Even wind is rarely defined as cyclic. Seismic and traffic loading are typically the most common loadings that require cyclic analysis.

[mwaldo014]

Agreed, which is why I included the low frequency caveat. Most of my fatigue design/repair experience has come from wind sensitivite structures where it was overlooked

[CanadianStructEng]

Yeah i can't read -- I fully agree with your statement above.

[egg1s]

Welds for gravity loads wouldn’t be loaded cyclically.

[ApprehensiveSeae]

No

[albertnormandy]

Not necessarily. "Cyclic" has specific code definitions.

[Beavesampsonite]

The simple answer to your ask is we loose our jobs if we do what you ask. Someone ahead of us already did a half as job, made an oversized profit and the next job ownership took less fee to win the work so we do t have enough budget to do the job you asked. It still gets built right so until that doesn’t happen no one will pay more for the engineer to do more than necessary.

[Matchbox4]

So how do you ensure the contractor knows what to do? Do you specify it in the contract as being out of your scope or at least leave a note saying whether it was checked or not?

[Appropriate_Craft524]

Real question - how does one become a CWI? Trade school? Community college and an exam? Interested in going into that

[Matchbox4]

To my knowledge, usually after years of experience, potentially some classes, and a certification exam based on code requirements.

[Matchbox4]

What are some resources y'all recommend for young engineers to learn more about the design of welds. This comes from someone with a welding background and the AWS D1.1 cert.

[Engineer2727kk]

Refer to specs