Detailing to Achieve Practical Welded Fabrication

The thousands of highway bridges, scores of high-rise buildings, and other impressive structures framed with welded steel certainly testify to the knowledge and skills of design engineers and structural steel fabricators. But, even sophisticated engineers do make mistakes— and there are very few designers or fabricators who are completely up-to-date on modern welding technology or structural design. The author, in his consulting work, often sees the errors that engineers make and has observed their lack of awareness of improved principles in design and advances in the welding arts. Before discussing examples of good and bad detailing, one point should be stressed: Anything done five years ago in welding design or fabrication could be obsolete! Every welded detail should be re-evaluated to determine (1) if it incorporates new knowledge about how to handle forces; (2) if it takes advantage of new provisions in governing codes; (3) if it is compatible with new advances in welding equipment, electrodes, processes, and procedures; and (4) if it offers opportunity to minimize costs through use of more precise determinations made possible with the advent of the programmable calculator.