Welding Distortion: How the Experts Get a Handle on It

In order for a structural steel fabricator within Toronto to have mastery over the distortion of their welds, it is vital that they not only have a team of competent welders, but also designers – that’s right, having a handle on the distortion in a weld is a problem that is best tackled from top-to-bottom.

 

How Is Distortion Controlled in Welding?

The goal here is not distortion prevention, as the innate heating and cooling cycle of a weld make this impossible, but, rather, manipulation. Any structural steel fabricator, in Toronto or otherwise, worth their salt will have expertise in most, if not all, of these methods of distortion control:

 

• No Room for Overwelding – a trained eye capable of incorporating the minimum necessary weld sizing for a joint delivers benefits that are threefold: distortion minimisation, preserving weld metal, and saving time.
• Non-Continuous Welds – where applicable (e.g. joining stiffeners to a plate), sporadic, non-continuous welds serve to save you up to 75%, by quantity, of weld metal while still exhibiting the necessary strength requirements.
• Strongback Systems – butt welding plates are infamous amongst welders for their high propensity to distortion. Through a combination of clips and wedges through the 'strongback technique', alignment is forced between the edges of the plates.
• Use of a Jig (Water-Cooled) – transferring heat away from a weld, in order to have a better grasp on distortion levels, can be best served through use of a water-cooled jig. A sentiment that especially rings true for welding together sheet-metal, where copper tubes and clamps are soldered to one another with water passing through in order to successfully diminish high levels of heat.

 

Distortion Is One Thing…

Welders, whether they work for a structural steel fabricator in Toronto or not, face a multitude of issues to contend with when it comes to the quality of their weldment – distortion and the accompanying residual stresses are but one of them.

 

Whether it be in-house our mobile welding services, the qualified welders hard at work at Scarboro Steel take it upon themselves to deliver services that are free, as much as is possible, from:

 

• Distortion
• Crack
• Porosity

 

Preferential treatment isn’t part of our modus operandi here at Scarboro Steel, a project – whether it be small or grand in scale – is given our complete and utter commitment to quality control and examination for every workpiece that goes into your project.