The SS Schenectady, an all welded tanker, broke in two

whilst lying in dock in 1943. Principal causes of this

failure were poor design and bad workmanship
The above picture is of a new pressure vessel that
failed during its hydraulic test
Welding Defects
Cacat cacat las
UNDERCUT
 Porosity
Single Pore
Uniformly Scattered
Cluster
Linear
Piping
POROSITY
Elongated pores or
wormholes
 Surface breaking pores (T fillet
weld in primed plate)

Uniformly distributed
porosity
 Misalignment (hi-lo)

Definition: Amount a joint is out

of alignment at the root
Cause: Carelessness. Also due to joining different
thicknesses (transition thickness)
INCOMPLETE FUSION
Lack of side
wall fusion

Lack of inter-run
fusion
Lack of fusion
INCOMPLETE PENETRATION
&
EXCESSIVE PENETRATION
Incomplete penetration
OVERLAP
 Overlap
Overlap is measured with
a square edge such as a
6 rule. No amount of
overlap is typically
allowed.
UNDERFILL
SPATTER
EXCESSIVE CONVEXITY
Concavity
EXCESSIVE CONCAVITY
Convexity
Convexity and
Concavity
EXCESSIVE WELD
REINFORCEMENT
UNACCEPTABLE
WELD PROFILES
Hot crack

Crack
Solidification
crack
 Cracking associated with the
coarse grained heat affected
zone

Intergranular morphology of
reheat cracks
Crack along the coarse grain
structure in the HAZ
Hydrogen cracks originating in the HAZ
(note, the type of cracks shown would not
be expected to form in the same weldment)
Solidification
crack along
the centre line
of the weld
Weld bead penetration
too small
Lamellar
Tearing
Lamellar tearing in T
butt weld

Appearance of fracture
face of lamellar tear
 Inclusions
Slag
Wagontracks
Tungsten
 The influence of welder
technique on the risk of slag
inclusions when welding with a
basic SMAW (E7018) electrode

Smooth weld bead

profile allows the slag
to be readily removed
between runs

Poor (convex) weld bead

profile resulted in
pockets of slag being
trapped between the
weld runs
Prevention of slag
inclusions by
grinding between
runs
Magnetic
arc blow
Demagnetising a pipe
 Laminations
Base Metal Discontinuity
May require repair prior to welding
Formed during the milling process
 REPAIR TECHNIQUES
May involve:
different process
different procedure
different preheat/PWHT
different electrode
smaller electrode