Results Found: Angle of skewed fillet joint, go/no-go evaluation of the leg sizes and throat. Laser Inspection Tool 1. Select fillet weld task in the drop-down menu. 2. Scan the fillet weld in question (included angle of the skewed fillet is irrelevant to the scan) — Fig. 6. 3. Store results in a database. 4. Open results in an Excel® software format for viewing and reporting. Results Found: Angle of skewed fillet joint, leg sizes, throat size, weld area, undercut on legs 1 and 2, convexity/concavity, toe angle on legs 1 and 2. It is faster to take the measurement of a weld with the laser inspection tool, and it yields more-precise results and stores the data for easy retrieval and reporting. 16 Inspection Trends / October 2011 Inspection Applications With one laser inspection tool, joints such as T, butt, corner, and lap can all be measured by simply switching tasks from one type joint to the next. Typical weld sizes can range from small gas tungsten arc welds to multipass submerged arc welds. It is even possible to measure joints before welding, thus giving you an opportunity to prevent problems from occurring earlier in the manufacturing process. Since these devices can yield so much information about your welding operations, it gives engineers the opportunity to improve quality, reduce overwelding, and find upstream problems in part and tooling preparation. Best Practices Visual weld inspection is the most prevalent nondestructive examination (NDE) method used today to ensure that the welding manufacturing process is done correctly and meets all applicable standards. Because of the capabilities of this new laser-based precision measuring tool, you need to look at the existing best practices associated with traditional visual weld inspection and determine how these will change. Let’s look at some specific areas of the visual testing process. Qualified People: As is true with all NDE methods, you need to start with the people side of the equation to make sure the person doing the visual weld inspection is qualified to do the work with respect to using the measuring tool and is familiar with the requirements to be met. Using a laser measurement tool does not change this requirement, but because there is the possibility to preprogram the inspection tool, the inspector doing the work only needs to know how to use the tool properly to do a valid inspection. Measuring Tools and Methodology: Gauge repeatability and reproducibility are fundamental to using any type of gauge or measuring device correctly. Typical manual gauges used for weld inspection normally change only from wear so a calibration is not really relevant. However, there is a large margin for error with respect to how the inspector uses the gauge, and thus two inspectors may get different results. A laser inspection tool, such as the WikiScan, when used per the approved operating instructions, is quite repeatable when measuring standard AWS-type weld joints and welds. Subjectivity is largely eliminated, thus reducing the need for redundant inspections and the fallout from those redundancies, which is to increase unnecessary repairs. Do the Job Right the First Time: Typically, inspection is seen as Fig. 3 — Checking weld size on heavy-plate pressure vessels. Fig. 5 — The skewed fillet to be measured with a fillet gauge. Fig. 4 — Weld feature measurements and defects detected.
Inspection Trends - October 2011 - Fall
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