Quality is safety

Abstract

Welding alters the engineered properties of a material, effecting irrevocable changes to the metallurgical structure and mechanical characteristics due to the addition of energy to combine two materials into one. As a fabrication process, this method has been used since the early part of the 20th century and has become the basic means to construct and build most of the industries required for modern society. Almost since the beginning, in the 1930s, there was the recognition that welding codes or standards were required for higher quality weld metal. This understanding has expanded to include and manage the parent material changes in the heat-affected zone as well. Most codes and standards in use have been influenced by catastrophic failures and therefore provide minimum requirements to achieve suitable welds that will result in safe service. In addition, the control of weld properties and therefore the integrity of a welded component to function safely is managed in part by quality control. Weld safety, however, is more than this and should entail the whole process from design to delivery and is achieved by a systematic weld quality management system implemented ethically. This paper reviews the influence of some catastrophic weld failures and aims to show how ethics, weld quality management, and engineering interact to ensure weld safety.