Welding of Obsolete and Historical Structural Steels [O7]

Structural steels were not commercially produced under standard specifications written specifically for manufacture of easily-welded structural steels until after the mid-to-late 1950s. Consequently, steels manufactured to now-obsolete standard specifications from before roughly 1960 may exhibit physical features that adversely affect the soundness of the existing steel to be welded, such as non-metallic inclusions, stringers, voids of various shapes, tears, and segregation. Given that AWS D1.1 focuses primarily on welding of new structural steels, it does not list existing structural steels manufactured according to now-obsolete standard specifications for use with prequalified weld procedure specifications (WPS). As a result, the structural engineer must determine the requirements for making welds to obsolete and historical structural steels. In particular, the structural engineer should consider the noted soundness concerns, which are detected only through metallographic examination of the steel, when designing joint details and specifying the requirements for the WPS. For the structural engineer faced with specifying new welds to obsolete and historical steels, this presentation explains the use of metallography for detecting the noted soundness concerns and provides guidance for designing joint details and specifying WPS requirements, all of which are illustrated by a case study involving welding of circa-1905 structural steel.

Track: Connections

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