IIW History 1948-1958

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« Behaviour of met als subjected to welding », would study all weldability pro– blems, including those presented by the phenomenon of brittle fracture in the case of welded steel constructions . The Governing Council approved this proposal at the encl of the F lorence assembly in 1954 and Commission IX, in the form in which it exists today, was placed under the Chairmanship of Professor E. Ho uDREiVIO><'l' ; ::\Ir. H. G. GEERLIXGS was appointed Vice-Chairman and the membership of the Commission included all the delegat es on the two parent Commissions . At present, the work is divided between three sub-commissions and several rapporteurs; reports on the progress made in their respective tasks are submitted to the Commission at each annual assembly . The Sub-Commissions are : Comparison of brittle fracture tests : Sub-Commission A; Chairman : Mr. \V. BARR (United Kingdom). vVelclability of steels in relation to their transformation characteristics : Sub-Commission B; Chairman : l\Ir. H. GRANJON (France). Recommendations on weldable st eels : Sub-Commission C; Chairman : Mr. \V. BONHOMME (Belgium). Theory of brittle fracture : Rapporteur : Mr. P . E. LAGASSE (Belgium). Weldability tests : Rapporteur : :i\fr. H. GRANJON (France) . Corrosion of welded light alloys : Rapporteur : Mr. G. WESTENDORP (Nether– lands) . The work of Commission IX having been brought to the knowledge of steel– making circles in various countries, certain experimental investigations, which a re mentioned below, h ave, in addition, been carried out at an international level by working groups of steel-makers set up , so to speak, on the fringe of the rrw ; the purpose of these investigations has been to examine, from the point of view of the st eel-makers, the measures taken within the II\V by Commission IX. The Belgian delegation provides the secretariat for these working groups. This history of the Commission having been given , the following account will deal only with the single Commission. A certain number of delegates and experts on it had, from the start , participated in the work of the two former Commissions and this facilitated the amalgamation in 1954· All the delegates ~vho met for the first tinie in 1949 had some idea of what the Weldability -Commission would be studying; they rapidly realised the diffi– culty of establishi1~g a definition of welclability which might serve as a framework for the Commission's programme of work. Nevertheless, aft er a year of discus– sion and correspondence, a definition proposed by the French delegation was adopted and fonvarded to the Committee ISO/TC 44 (Welding); this Committee in its turn adopt ed the definition and prepared the following equivalent English text : << A metallic material is considered to be weldable to a certain degree by a given process and for a given purpose, when a continuous metallic connection can be obtained by welding using a suitable procedure, so that the joints comply with the requirements specified both in regard to their local properties and their influence on the construction of which they form part )), 2. WORK ACCOMPLISHED AND IN HAND. . ' . A. Definition of Weidability and Weldability Tests .

Another task which was seen at the beginning to be essential was the listing