Comment
GEOFF CRITTENDEN – CEO, Weld Australia
The rationale behind the introduction of ISO 9606-1 Qualification testing of welders – Fusion welding – Part 1: Steels
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HERE appears to be a lack of understanding within the fabrication industry about the rationale for introducing ISO 9606 Qualification testing of welders – Fusion welding into Australia and, more broadly, the need for ISO Standards. As such, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain it. I would like to begin with a brief overview of AS/NZS 1554 Structural steel welding Part 1: Welding of steels structures. An excellent standard, AS/NZS 1554.1 states that a welder must be qualified (by welding a coupon in accordance with the relevant acceptance criteria as outlined in the Standard). For shutdown work in particular where 8 JULY 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly
welders move from site to site, this can impose a significant cost impost (especially in time delays) due to the need to requalify every time they commence work on a new site. While this is not so much of issue for workshop-based fabricators where they have ready access to their welder’s qualification records, it is a major problem for organisations within the resources, power, defence, and oil and gas industries who employ teams of specialist welders to undertake program-specific on-site maintenance work, usually where there may be minimal records available of either the welder’s qualifications, or maintenance of qualifications.
In this situation, every welder contracted to undertake programspecific maintenance work must complete a welding coupon. Each welding coupon costs between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the complexity of the weld procedure to which the welder is being qualified. Unfortunately, the failure rate of welders attempting these coupons can be as high as 80 per cent. Therefore, to successfully qualify 10 welders, an organisation may need to test as many as 50 welders, at a total cost of as much as $250,000. While this type of cost is an unacceptable burden on many industries, I want to emphasise
that this is not a criticism of AS/NZS 1554.1. To help alleviate this financial burden, Weld Australia looked internationally for an appropriate Standard that would provide a benchmark for welder competency in Australia. We had two options: ISO 9606-1 or AS/NZS 2980 Qualification of welders for Fusion welding of steels. At the time of consideration, AS/ NZS 2980 was known to be based on an old version of ISO 9606-1. In consultation with our members – particularly major asset managers in the resources, power, defence, and oil and gas industries – we settled on current edition of ISO 9606-1 for several reasons. manmonthly.com.au
