JTMcC,
I'll answer your questions one by one.
1st. This is the second time that a phrase which I wrote in this Forum just as a "good humor comment", and was to be considered as that, is misunterstood. I had no intention to offend anybody whatsoever.
Evidently, you Americans have a different mentality, or psychology, than we Brazilians do. A phrase that would make us Brazilians smile make you Americans to become strongly upset.
I've learned the lesson, and from now on I'll limit my postings to strictly answer the questions, with no other intention. As a proof, I've erased from my previous posting the phrase you didn't like.
2nd. I've never lived in the U.S. and therefore I won't argue with you about the electrodes they used in the U.S. to weld pipelines. What I'll say is that here in Brazil, and in other South American countries, which are the ones I've worked in, the standard practice to weld gas and oil pipelines was to apply the root pass with E6010 and the rest with low hydrogen electrodes. I say "was" because nowadays pipelines are welded mostly with automatic machines, which I believe must be the standard practice also in the U.S.
Granted, there are welds that can not be made with automatic machines, and those continue to be done as they were in the past.
I've never lived in the U.S. and won't argue with you, but you can take a look at the "API 1104 Pipeline Welder" question posted by Arnie Capuz on the "Certification and Qualification" section of this Forum, and you will read the comments posted by Arnie Capuz himself, who worked for clients like Bechtel; and Donnie Mann, who worked for clients like the U.S. Army, and they are accostumed to use low hydrogen electrodes to weld pipelines. Also Jon 20013 is accostumed to use low hydrogen electrodes for pipelines, in an answer he posted right before this one.
3rd. Before becoming a university professor, which, I agree with you, doesn't mean very much in terms of practical experience, I've worked for 35 years in engineering projects, some of them quite small (100.000 dollars) and others very huge (3 billion dollars, "bi" not "mi"), either in the office or on the field, and in a wide amount of areas: oil refineries, chemical and petrochemical, metallurgical, power plants, natural gas compressing and oil pumping stations, cement factories, mining, water works, environment protection.
Consulting engineers and/or process licensors were companies as:
Oil refineries: Lummus, M.W. Kellogg.
Chemical: Power Gas, Mitsubishi, Krebs, Covagri.
Petrochemical: Badger, Toyo.
Power plants: Sargent and Lundy, Gibbs and Hill, Merz and Mc Lellan, Ansaldo, Sofrelec.
Gas compressing and oil pumping: Sadelmi.
Mining: Davy Mc Kee.
Metallurgical: this was the largest project (the 3 billion dollars one) and consisted in an aluminum plant for the Aluminum Co. of America (Alcoa).
I'm just listing the American, European and Japanese consulting engineers and process licensors, not the Brazilians, because you don't know them.
4th. You may ask yourself how it comes that in Brazil, a third world country, I had the chance of working in such large projects with such prestigious companies.
The reason is simple: Brazil is a third world country because 5% of the population are billionaire (again, "bi", not "mi") and live in richness and magnificence, while 20% of the population live below the limit of poverty. From an industrial point of view, however, Brazil is more developed than many countries that are considered first world ones.
Regards
Giovanni S. Crisi
Forum
