TPT November 2013

Welding technology

Photo: K-TIG – Australia

Many of the considerations that inform tube welding are basic to the method: selection of materials, joint preparation, cleanliness. But particular metals – stainless and carbon steel, aluminium, nickel-alloy – call for welding protocols that are as distinctive as the materials themselves. Today’s welding professionals are the successors of those who learned from experience not to take a brush that has been used on a stainless or carbon steel workpiece to one made of aluminium.

To the companies represented here, the differences – in grain structure, melting point, thermal conductivity – among metals, and among the welding techniques that these differences dictate, are very well understood. Perfect welds may be taken for granted by the customer of a state-of-the-art tubing plant. Why? Because, gained the hard way, respect for the individuality of metal feedstocks is second nature to the work force.