June 2011

It's just about one year on from the start of our Fifa World Cup. Johannesburg is experiencing some serious power outages again and the US economy is jittery to say the least. But positive things are still happening in South Africa, at the SAIW and in the welding industry in general.

Jim Guild tells us in this issue of a new development drive at the SAIW, a drive towards improved levels of service so as to retain the Institute's widely respected reputation for quality services. "Between now and 2014, we will be striving to secure our place as the continent's leading resource in training, support services and technology development," he says. Areas of improvement include:

• Increasing the scope of the Institute's service offerings.
• Expanding its presence and levels of activity in regions within South Africa.
• Extending and expanding its offerings across the African continent. 
• Increasing the number of SAIW technical, networking and marketing events.

Afrox's upgraded Brits consumables factory is our cover story and we feature Elca Engineering as our company profile this month, a company renowned for its turbine remanufacturing expertise. Elca consists of three independently run but interlinked departments: the turbine department, the machine shop and the fabrication department. The fabrication shop is currently busy with the manufacture of deaerator vessels for the Medupi and Kusile power stations, for which the containing vessel has an OD of 5,0 m, a length of 32 m and weighs 140 t when fully assembled. This is the largest fabrication job ever undertaken by the company.

Our IIW paper in the issue is about high-speed welding using triple-wire GMAW and the effects on polarity combinations on welding stability. We also publish a paper presented by Sean Blake at an SAIW evening meeting earlier this year on how to achieve success when welding cast iron, steel and stainless steel castings.

We visit KLT Automotive and Tubular Projects in Hammanskraal, a company that is in the final stages of setting up a new chassis line for the new Ford Ranger. Using 78 Yaskawa Motoman robots and a unique post-bending and post-piecing strategy, the line is among the most modern and most accurate in the world.

Quentin Schoombie of Tank Ends discusses the importance of getting the welding right while preparing blank discs for dished-ends and we visit MC Steelworks, a specialist pipe welding SME born out of a Sasol maintenance department.

Tom Rice of the Austrian Welding Academy talks about his vision for welder training and we present an overview of Acoustic Emission NDT in our Today's technology slot.

I look forward to the next issue in September.

Peter Middleton

Regular Features