What's the so called Good Engineering Practice? It's the wealth of knowledge gained over years and years of experience by thousands of engineers, each one on his (her) specific area of work. In this case, it would be Welding.
Very seldom is the Good Engineering Practice written in academic books. A consistent part of it is contained in the many engineering documents issued over the years by consulting and project engineering firms, large manufacturing companies and other outfits well known for their technical competence. Example of these documents are General Specifications, Engineering Standards, Data Sheets, Catalogs, Instruction Manuals, Erection Procedures, and the like.
Sometimes these documents are disclosed to third parties. Examples are the General Specifications and Data Sheets that the consulting and project engineering firms hand over to their clients and sub-contractors and that make part of a particular project. In my many years of professional experience I've always bothered to keep a copy with me. Sometimes, however, the documents are kept locked under seven keys because they make part of the company's Know How.
Another consistent part is not written anywhere. It's contained in the heads of thousands of engineers working for the companies I've spoken above and have at least fifteen years of professional, hands on, experience. This wealth of knowledge, not written anywhere, is transmitted verbally from generation to generation. Example: when I was a 24 years old "just out of school" engineer, I went to work for an erection company and became the contractor "junior engineer" for the construction of a small sized power plant. I stuck to the boiler and turbogenerator field engineers and "sucked their brains" as much as I could. They were over 60 years old, saw my enthusiasm for learning things and gladly taught me, if not all, at least a good part of their experience. This happened more than 40 years ago, and I've never seen written anywhere the things they taught me.
If Chuck Meadows and me were responsible for the same construction job, he as the client (the soft side) and me as the contractor (the hard side, the only one I've ever been into), I've got no doubts that, based on our many years of experience, we would agree in the great great majority of the welds quality controls, either visual, radiographic etc. In the vey few cases of disagreement, what would we do? We'd go to the applicable code or standard, or engineering specification or else, to see what thay say.
Why, if no code, standard nor engineering spec is mentioned in FS' contract? Because the Good Engineering Practice says that a weld must be decently done, regardless of what the contract says, and neither Chuck nor me would accept an undecent weld. That's what we're engineers for.
Giovanni S. Crisi
Giovanni; what an eloquent response! It's a great pleasure reading your wisdom on these boards, I too have many years of experience and I have fond memories of the mentor's who have guided me in my career, so many have now passed. While I certainly don't consider myself anything special in the engineering world, I have been really and truly blessed by association and being able to pick the brains of many of the greats! In the end, it's a very rewarding feeling when we're able to give something back to the generations following in our footsteps. Although we've never met in person, I feel I would consider you a very good and dear friend.
Giovanni,
Very well communicated. I certainly agree with every aspect of your commentary. Thank you for giving excellent information along with excellent examples. Thank you..
Chuck
Chuck, you know what I said to Giovanni holds true to you as well!
Chuck and Jon,
thankyou very much for your kind words on my person.
Giovanni
By -
Date 09-26-2005 23:31
Giovanni,
Don't thank us, as they are well deserved.
Chuck
