As the welding quite often takes place in tracks which are in use, the speed of the welding operation and the safety of the welders are important aspects of welding on railway tracks.

Why RAILSAFE? Safety of rail traffic depends highly on the quality of the tracks, on the welds in the tracks and thus on the skills of the welder. (W 227) (1)

Welding operation = Operação de soldagem

It is essential to carry out comprehensive and coordinated research to understand how a component is affected when exposed to a hydrogen environment, how to prevent or minimise the failure probability, and finally to gather critical data to develop design guidance and government regulations to ensure safe operation of infrastructures involving hydrogen environment. (W 94) (2)

Safe operation = Operação segura

The guidelines have been incorporated in BS 7910 Annex G and have the potential to significantly reduce the costs associated with continued operation or repair of pipelines in which in-service corrosion is found. More details of the corrosion assessment procedures have been given by Fu and Andrews. (W 473) (3)

Continued operation = Operação contínua

(1) Requirements for the European education of railway track welders in aluminothermic welding

Tim Jessop, TWI and Hans van den Brug, RI

EUROJOIN 6, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 28 – 30 June 2006.

(2) Review of the effect of hydrogen gas on fatigue performance of steels

Yan Hui Zhang 

Structural Integrity Technology Group

TWI Ltd

Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6AL, United Kingdom

Paper presented at 29th International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (OMAE 2010), Shanghai, China, 6-11 June 2010.

(3) Engineering critical analyses to BS 7910 – the UK guide on methods for assessing the acceptability of flaws in metallic structures

By: C S Wiesner (1), S J Maddox (1), W Xu (1), G A Webster (2), F M Burdekin (3), R M Andrews (4) and J D Harrison (1) 

(1)TWI, (2)Imperial College, (3)UMIST, (4)BG Technology

Paper published in International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Piping, vol.77, no.14-15. December 2000. pp.883-893.

The sensor comprises a steel coupon attached adjacent to a critical joint. Stress cycles cause fatigue crack growth in the coupon that is detected electrically. For a typical fillet welded joint the sensor output gives the proportion of the fatigue design life that has been used.  TWI is currently involved in the final stages of development and application of the system. (Welding 376) (1)

Sensor output = Saída do sensor

The manufacturing route currently preferred for achieving output powers suitable for deep penetration keyhole welding of metals is by combining the outputs from a series of these commercially available single-mode units into a single fibre output. (W 269) (2)

Fibre output = Saída de fibra

The attainment of a through-thickness crack in all investigations by Wylde….[5-10] was found to be readily detected as a secondary maximum in strain range on the graph of strain output from the gauge element closest to the centre of the crack. (W 156) (3)

Strain output = Saída de tensão

(1) CrackFirst – a new sensor system to assist in structural health monitoring

Case Study

www.twi-global.com/…/crackfirst-a-new-sensor-system-to-assist-in-structural-health-monitoring-339/ – 2014-05-06.

(2) The fibre laser – a newcomer for material welding and cutting

Why this new type of laser is attracting so much interest from the materials processing industry

G Verhaeghe

Paper published in Welding Journal August 2005.

(3) Review and assessment of fatigue data for offshore structural components containing through-thickness cracks

Y H Zhang, TWI Ltd, Abington, Cambridge, UK

A Stacey, Health and Safety Executive, London, UK

Paper presented at OMAE 2008 27th international Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Estoril, Portugal, 15 – 20 June 2008. Paper OMAE 2008 – 57503.