Cracking in Welded Steel Plates – On Purpose!

One of the challenges in teaching welding inspection is to provide realistic welding discontinuities for students to discover, evaluate, and document. Conestoga College in Cambridge, Ontario, teaches welding inspection and non-destructive testing to students in several programs, but most intensively in the three-year Welding Engineering Technology – Inspection program. To create a series of weld test plates with realistic cracking for inspection training purposes, plates were welded under conditions where cracking is probable. This article documents the process and the results of creating cracked weld test plates using Lehigh Restraint Test coupons.