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Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / Group II to II steel WPS from a PQR for Group I to I
- - By SpaceWelds Date 01-09-2019 22:15 Edited 01-09-2019 22:18
We have a situation where we need to fix a large structure welded to AWS d1.1 due to ship out next Friday in a big hurry (someone forgot to put a bunch of beams on it!). Anyway, the material is A572 - grade not specified, and it will be fillet welded around its base (prequal joint type L-F12).  I suggested since we're in a pinch that we go to a prequal WPS and weld it with SMAW, as they have spec'd 1/2" welds on the 5/8" flanges. That way we could just do a pre-production welder qual and get the thing done quickly.

The problem is that the structure has a bunch of softgoods attached to it, like plastics and Kevlar that the engineers are really worried about getting burned up so they want to weld these 5/8" flange I-beams with GTAW. Unfortunately,   the only WPS/PQR we have for GTAW is for A36 to A500, so I am interpreting that we would need to do a new PQR for the Group II to Group II steels, write a WPS to that and qual the welder to the new WPS. Am I making this harder than it needs to be? My welder is a bad mofo with a TIG torch, so I am 100% confident he'll lay perfect beads, but I need to be able to show a good papertrail because the thing this supports is a multi-million $$$ piece of equipment, and the structure will be used to transport it. My one thought is that we get the engineer to over-ride the spec on the face of the drawing and let me write a WPS for the A572 based on our PQR for the Group I.

Any help or guidance is appreciated!

Thanks!
Parent - - By jwright650 (*****) Date 01-10-2019 12:07
Maybe, before you strike an arc, figure the heat input and see if a different prequalified process(possibly FCAW) moving at a quicker pace will input less heat and write a new (prequalified)WPS. - just a thought
Parent - - By SpaceWelds Date 01-10-2019 20:06
If only we had an FCAW machine. We only have a small GTAW, because we outsource most of our big fab projects to other companies. I've tried convincing the engineer that 1/2 GTAW welds on a rolling cart may cause more severe issues, like warping, and that we can adequately blanket the softgoods so we can use SMAW, but they are too nervous about both sparks and that they don't trust SMAW because they think it is for farm welding, not spacecraft support equipment.
Parent - By jwright650 (*****) Date 01-10-2019 20:41
Do you have a lab that can help you push a PQR through quickly? It seems that the labs capable of doing the mechanical testing near me are always busy.
Up Topic Welding Industry / Inspection & Qualification / Group II to II steel WPS from a PQR for Group I to I

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