strength test Al (Aluminium, Aluminum) weld for quality

Hi Been learning Al-GMAW, as seen in other posts. Testing the quality of the weld...

With steel welds, if you mess it up, the loss of properties is toughness not strength (in the main, to an approximation) - and toughness is expensive and difficult to measure, especially for a weld.

From what I read about Al, if you mess-up your weld conditions, the loss of properties will be strength - and that is easy and cheap to measure - eg. my home-spun test for fillet-welds (video on my website)

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Is that right?? Can you measure / verify you have kept your weld on the optimum with a tensile test, for Al welds welding Al plate?

Thanks in advance... Rich S

Reply to
Richard Smith
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Hi Been learning Al-GMAW, as seen in other posts. Testing the quality of the weld...

With steel welds, if you mess it up, the loss of properties is toughness not strength (in the main, to an approximation) - and toughness is expensive and difficult to measure, especially for a weld.

From what I read about Al, if you mess-up your weld conditions, the loss of properties will be strength - and that is easy and cheap to measure - eg. my home-spun test for fillet-welds (video on my website)

formatting link

Is that right?? Can you measure / verify you have kept your weld on the optimum with a tensile test, for Al welds welding Al plate?

Thanks in advance... Rich S

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Unlike the secretive aerospace companies, NASA often publishes the results of their publically-funded research into materials and methods.

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Reply to
Jim Wilkins

IIRC you are correct, tensile only adequate for most Al welds, but I have been retired for a while and have an imperfect memory.

Often the limiting factor in the strength of good aluminum welds is annealing of the base metal in the heat affected zone just outside the weld, unless the base metal started out in the T0 (fully annealed) condition. So whenever you are welding heat treated plate you should expect a good weld to fail in the HAZ. Not necessarily true for cast aluminum where a good match between weld and base metal is often possible.

I recall an article on welding aluminum in AWS Welding magazine some decades ago where the author defined an aluminum weld as "a continuous defect in an otherwise sound piece of metal".

I just checked to see if there is a current edition of my old "Aluminum Weldor's Training Manual" (no luck) but a current reference is:

"Welding Aluminum: Theory and Practice" by The Aluminum Association

Rather pricey at $140 for non-members, but perhaps you can find a used copy.

Glen

Reply to
Glen Walpert

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So that's why I was taught to test my sample steel weld coupons by bending them double along the weld line. The instructors didn't give me a test for aluminum welds, perhaps because mine were obviously bad.

Fairly inexpensive crane (tension) scales:

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I've used mine for proof testing but haven't yet subjected it to the jolt of a tension test to failure. It showed that the oak log I'll hopefully soon saw into beams weighs 2130 Lbs. The previous heaviest was 1440 Lbs which strained the sawmill's capacity and I've had to upgrade the saw, hoist and chainsaw to handle this one.

I expected that tree to stand for another 100 years but it had grown over a flat rock and was rooted only at the edges.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

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