IIW History 1990-2015

t he way ahead for IIW, really, is to look at the accomplish- ments of welding over recent times including the way that welding has transformed the lives of everyone and the promise of a bright future that it will inevitably bring. Infrastructure is one of the key aspects of a nation’s development since investment in infrastructure has a multiplier effect in generating lasting economic and environmental benefits. Investment in water, sanitation, energy, housing and transport also improves lives and reduces poverty. Insufficient or inadequate infrastructure can lead to congestion, power outages, lack of access to safe water and roads, inadequate or non-existent health facilities and is a global concern, particularly in underdeveloped and developing countries. Just keeping pace with projected global GDP growth will require an estimated USD 57 trillion in infrastructure investment between 2013 and 2030, 60% more than it cost over the previous 18 years.¹ The inevitable risk is that the difference between rich and poor will become greater, leading to dislocation in socioeconomic relationships and mass relocation from the poorer countries to richer nations for those who are seeking a better quality of life. In meeting that challenge it has been necessary for welding, in its entirety, to be innovative in accomplishing the great advances that have taken place over the last 25 years. Infrastructure, inherently, has always been the key to sustainable development as evidenced by the great industrial revolution in the 1800s, which led to more cost-effective methods of production and a need for improved transportation to facilitate the movement of goods and materials by land and sea. Welding, associated with advances in materials, was used in the great infrastructure projects of the twentieth century – dams, buildings, bridges, ports, shipping, power stations, and air and road projects. Welding played an unrivalled role in the development of many of the great industrial nations although welding technology, itself, is often an unnoticed and invisible activity pervading a nation’s industrial development. Half the economic wealth of industrialised nations relies directly or indirectly on fabrication techniques using welding and joining technologies. The health of nations is equally important and welding itself has also been instrumental in improving the lifestyle of the overall population with advances in welding techniques for different biocompatible materials in medical devices, such as miniature cardiac pacemakers and surgical implants. It is in this area of microjoining technology that some of the greatest advances in the welding and joining of materials has taken place over the last 25 years.

MEETING CHALLENGE – THE WAY AHEAD