established. This can often be achieved by reference to relevant British Standards. For example, acceptance
levels for ultrasonic testing are contained in BS 1113. Unless the offer is made in such terms the purchaser
can take a position whereby the work produced is never acceptable to him because he has been clever
enough not to specify his requirement in detail! The route followed in handling an enquiry by a large
fabricator is shown in Fig. 6.
In supporting the estimating department, the welding engineer must provide data on the processes to be
used, the joint forms to be adopted, and the tolerances that must be achieved. He must also identify what
risks are being taken; for example, is a particular joint configuration likely to cause lamellar tearing and
what are the alternatives that could be followed? In some cases his alternative proposals may be adopted at
the expense of a higher basic cost, but on other occasions calculated risks may be taken by management
when being faced with a depleted shop forward load.
An essential role of the welding engineer is to ensure that the design offered to him does not present
insurmountable problems to execute. A common example of this is in the inaccessibility of certain welds
whereby, due to technical limitations of most welding processes, no amount of work on his part can
economically produce a sound weld in the nominated location (see Figs 3 and 7).
In arriving at the welding costs to build into an overall estimate, most organisations use their own
standard data as a basis. This is then modified, as advised by the welding engineer, depending on the
complexity of the component to be fabricated, and any difficulties, e.g. distortion, which are envisaged.
Data on welding deposition rates for various processes is available from a number of sources [7,