WEC Group Ltd and The Welding Institute

The Welding Institute has had a long association with WEC Group Ltd through the Association of Welding, Training, Fabrication and Education (AWFTE) and, in particular, through the SkillWeld and Construction Metalwork competitions.

The AWFTE aims to support and promote a standard of excellence in welding, joining and fabrication by providing current and progressive knowledge of practices from around the world to the trainers and educators of our future engineers.

We believe that by encouraging the development of knowledge in our educators, we not only promote advancement in new ideas, but also encourage lifelong learning in their students and future generations. WEC Group Ltd provide an excellent example of how, by working together, the Institute, industry and educators can all support the next generation of engineers.

About Kieran McShane

After leaving school at age 16, Kieran decided to pursue an apprenticeship with the WEC Group Ltd. During his time at the WEC Group Ltd, Kieran entered the WorldSkills UK competition 2019 at the age of just 17 and proved his skills through being awarded the silver medal. As a result of this success, Kieran has been selected to join the Squad UK to compete and represent the UK within the Construction Metalwork Category at the WorldSkills Competition, which is due to take place in Shanghai, 2021.

The Welding Institute would like to congratulate Kieran on this success and wish him luck with the global WorldSkills Competition next year!

Read more about Kieran McShane and his career on WEC Group Ltd.’s website here.

This webinar will look into the brittle crack arrest methodology and the way that it can be applied to prevent brittle fracture of modern structural steels, especially within the context of shipbuilding steels. The talk will consider the recommendations of the International Association of Classification Societies, which is due to be updated to include small-scale testing of materials. This work encompasses small-scale testing, which has been carried out at TWI Ltd to predict the brittle crack arrest properties of EH47 shipbuilding steel and is validated against large-scale test results.

Speaker: Jessica Taylor Interim CEng AWeldI

TWI’s Jessica Taylor is a PhD student in Structural Integrity of Offshore Structures with NSIRC and Cranfield University, sponsored by Lloyd’s Register Foundation. Her PhD topic is, ‘Using small scale mechanical tests to predict the crack arrest properties of modern structural steels.’ You can find out more about Jessica’s PhD project and research on NSIRC’s website.

Professional Development:

This webinar is a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) qualifying event with the opportunity to claim 2 CPD points per hour of attendance at the webinar.

Find out more and register here!

TWI Training and Examinations’ Senior Examiner and Welding Institute Technician Member, Rob Allsworth EngTech TechWeldI, will be delivering a presentation on ‘Life as a Site Welder in Industry’ on 30 July, 2020.

During these current times, uncertainties around career choices and opportunities are high and, as a Professional Engineering Institution, The Welding Institute is dedicated in using our network of experienced personnel to communicate the advantages of choosing a career in engineering and welding.

Rob is a Senior Examiner for TWI Training and Examinations with previous experience of working as a Site Welder. His talk will include his professional experiences along with the current challenges being faced within the welding industry. In addition to providing an informative presentation of experiences, Rob’s talk will also offer knowledge, support and advice for those considering a career in this rewarding role.

Now more than ever, a career in engineering and welding is becoming more accessible. Increased support and encouragement, including new apprenticeship policies and opportunities, is allowing more people to choose this career path. Attend this event to gain a deeper insight into what the role entails and how The Welding Institute is able to support you through our Associate Membership and Younger Members Network!

This is a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) qualifying event with the opportunity to gain 2 points per hour of attendance.

Find out more about this event and how to register! 

The Welding Institute will be hosting a webinar about ‘Predicting the Microstructure of Additively Manufactured Parts,’ which will be presented by Madie Allen on 16 July, 2020.

Speaker

Guest speaker Madie Allen is a National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) student at Brunel University London sponsored by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and will be presenting this webinar. View Madie’s NSIRC student profile and research here!

Event Topic

The webinar will look into how additive manufacturing (AM) enables complex and highly optimised parts, which would not be able to be manufactured using conventional methods such as casting or forging, to be produced. The presentation also covers the potential of additive manufacturing to provide significant environmental impacts as well as how the wide-scale adoption of additive manufacturing is limited due to uncertainties associated with the reliability and integrity of additively manufactured parts. The webinar will also outline the development of numerical models that can help to address these problems.

Benefits of attending

• Attending this webinar supports your Continuous Professional Development (CPD). You are able to claim 2 CPD points per hour of attendance at this event and, as a Member of The Welding Institute, you can record this CPD activity using our online CPD recording tool ‘MyCareerPath.’
• Webinars are a great opportunity for you to stay connected whilst keeping your industry knowledge up-to-date.

Find out the full details and register for the event here.

As a Professional Engineering Institution, The Welding Institute is dedicated to ensuring our Members’ professional needs are met.

To meet this need, The Welding Institute has had to adapt to the current situation that we are all facing and, although this change is challenging for everyone, it has also been an incredible opportunity for us to implement new ways of providing our services so that our Members can still access their membership benefits effectively.

Changes that Members may have noticed include:

Formal interviews are now taking place over video call, therefore cutting out the travel times and allowing The Institute to effectively reach more people, including globally!

Events are now being hosted online and are reaching a more global network of people than ever. The Welding Institute also understands the true value of face to face events and the networking opportunities they offer, however, these online events are an excellent way to keep our Members connected through these times.

The Institute is pleased to see the increasing interconnectedness of our Branches as they adapt to connecting through online mediums including video calls. It has been an opportunity for more people to get involved due to the reduced time and travel restraints of conducting Secretary and Board meetings online. This increased interconnectedness has also allowed Members from different Branches to attend and contribute to other Branch events and meetings.

The process of training volunteers has also changed for The Welding Institute, where we have been able to train more volunteers in one cohort than ever using online video call meetings. This has also enabled a more global reach for the Institute, with Members in Scotland, Nigeria, Switzerland and Anglesey being trained. This is an exciting opportunity for The Welding Institute, as the roles that our volunteers carry out allow more Members to be reached as well as allowing us to connect with engineers and technicians more globally.

To implement these new technologies and processes, The Welding Institute has worked closely with its Members, including those who carry out critical roles within Branches, to learn new systems and technologies and we would like thank all of those who worked with us on this to ensure that this process has been successful!

The Welding Institute would like to thank our Members and volunteers for their continued support, contributions and response to the new ways that The Welding Institute is adapting to!

The future for The Welding Institute

Throughout this time, the Institute is working closely with its volunteers to plan and organise our Technical Group Meeting events for the autumn (check out our events page). Our Branches are also currently working on a programme for online talks for Members starting in September. In addition to this, The Welding Institute is also preparing for more volunteer training workshops.

We would like to welcome Members to share any ideas on how we could make the best use of these new technologies to support and promote the work of The Welding Institute.

For World Chocolate Day 2020, The Welding Institute would like to highlight our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) outreach activity, ‘Welding with Chocolate’, and the role that it has and continues to play in engaging younger networks of students. It is an excellent way to develop their understanding of the importance of welding as a profession and furthermore the roles that engineers play within society.

The Welding with Chocolate activity was developed in 2007 by Welding Institute Fellow Dr Philippa Moore to be a fun, hands-on experience exploring the principles of welding and mechanical testing. The activity is held as a workshop and involves using chocolate bars to represent a material being welded and a heat source in the form of a bottle filled with hot water to act as a joining mechanism. The aim of the activity is to create a box girder bridge from four chocolate bars welded together. This bridge structure is then destructively tested by adding weights to the mid span of the structure. The results of these destructive tests are then compared to the strength of a single bar.

On the 25th June 2020, The Welding Institute (Southern Counties Branch) held a webinar on the topic of ‘Welding Process Investigation.’ The event focussed on the acceptance, rejection and distortion that occurs during the welding of a set on (nozzles to shell) joint, with seven different process variations. This involved an investigation of the following:

• The process in relation to the manufacturing of pressure vessels
• The effects of different welding processes on the same joint using the same material, thickness and diameter
• The process of the parts being welded using different processes and combinations of welding processes
• The accurate measurement of the parts (before and after) to assess the quality for NDT and DT (VT, RT, PT and microsection)
• The investigation’s results against different codes from EN 13445, RCC-M, ASME, etc

The speaker was Welding Institute Member Eur Ing Michael Baverstock MSc CEng MWeldI, who has experience in multiple industry sectors including working with aircraft and pressure vessels for over 30 years. Mike now runs his own welding engineering consultancy business, where he helps engineering companies improve their welding quality and processes across a range of industries. The event was very popular, with over 150 attendees joining the webinar.

Unlike previous branch events held in-person, this talk took place virtually as a webinar due to the current global situation. The webinar was very successful, with many who attended having commented positively on how the online talk was organised. Both our Members and non-Members adapted well to it being hosted online, and this unique opportunity to stream the talk online also allowed us to have a far wider reach with a global attendance of people joining from Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

The speaker’s research, presentation and knowledge were all well received by those who joined the event.

The Welding Institute is dedicated to ensuring that our Members are able to continue accessing their key membership benefits including the knowledge and networking opportunities that Institute Branch events facilitate. Although the ability to network is somewhat limited in our current circumstances, it was a great and successful example of how The Welding Institute and its Members and non-Members are able to adapt in these unprecedented times to overcome the obstacle of not being there in person!

Speaker and Branch Chair Perspective

Event speaker, Mike Baverstock, described his initial experience of hosting this webinar as being challenging due to the unfamiliarity of presenting online compared to in person, adding that being unable to see anyone, whilst also being aware that they could all see him was one of the biggest differences. He added that, although it was a very different experience to talking in person, he was able to adapt quickly due to him talking about his ‘favourite subject’ of welding. Mike also emphasised that, although the format of a webinar is something that our Members are mainly unfamiliar with, it is important to be able to adapt and develop technologically with these events in order to find the best ways of presenting.

Branch Chair Adam Saxty also echoed Mike’s message, explaining that he was also keen for more webinars and online events to be held in order to continue to deliver Branch events to our Members during this time. Adam expressed his interest in creating a more interactive forum for the participants, so that attendees are able to ask the speaker questions live throughout the event, making these online events more similar to normal Branch events. He also hopes to do more for international Members, and the continuation of online meetings and webinars will be an important way of enabling this.

The Welding Institute and Southern Counties Branch would like to thank Eur Ing Michael Baverstock MSc CEng MWeldI and those who were involved with the organisation of the event along with all those who attended!

This year’s Distinguished Service Award winner is Professor Bill Lucas who is an Accreditation and Education Committee Member and has been a Member of The Welding Institute since 1971.

About the Distinguished Service Award

The Distinguished Service Award is presented to an employee or Branch Member in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the operation, events and activities of The Welding Institute as a result of which the membership, status and position of the Institute has been significantly advanced.

About Bill

Bill has been a member of the Institute since 1971, gaining his Chartership (CEng) and Fellowship (FWeldI) in 1983. He holds a Doctorate in Science from Queens University of Belfast, as well as a PhD and is also an IWE member.

Professor Bill Lucas’s Involvement with The Welding Institute

Professor Bill Lucas chairs The Welding Institute’s Education Committee, where he advises on matters regarding the development and provision of education and training in welding, joining and allied technologies at higher education level. Bill also represents the Institute at the Engineering Council’s Engineering Accreditation Board (EAB), advising on accreditation policy and higher education relevant to education of engineers. Through his work, Bill actively supports and campaigns for the promotion of The Welding Institute and membership, as well as emphasising the importance of Engineering Council registration to young professionals.

Career

Bill worked at TWI Ltd from 1970 to 2007, during which, an important aspect of his role was the technical supervision of contract work for industrial companies involved with manufacturing. Bill continued his career from 2007 to 2012 as an independent consultant. Within his work, Bill also took on the role as Visiting Professor at the University of Liverpool, as well as chairing their Industrial Advisory Board for the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering.

Since becoming a Member of The Welding Institute in 1970, Bill has carried out fundamental research into process and manufacturing technology, with the overall objective of his research being to improve knowledge of welding processes, especially regarding their operation and control. His research also continues on to focus on welding process involvements, advanced software techniques and novel sensor systems.

Bill has been awarded with the Distinguished Service Award due to his continued support of The Welding Institute throughout his career, including his role as a former Chair of the International Welding’s Commission XII ‘Arc Welding Processes and Production Systems’ between 2001 and 2010. He was also a member of the British Standards Institute WEE 36 Committee, ‘Qualification of Welding Personnel and Welding Procedures,’ and has written and been involved with the publishing of over 150 academic papers.

The Welding Institute would like to congratulate Professor Bill Lucas on winning this award and thank him for his continued support of the Institute!

If you are interested in how you can get involved with The Welding Institute please contact us! 

Introduction

The Loyal Service Award is given by The Welding Institute’s Professional Board, in recognition of outstanding service to the Branches and committees of The Welding Institute.

The following recipients of the Loyal Service Award were all recognised for their work with the Membership, Education and Registration Committee. The committee reports on matters relating to professional membership, the education, training and qualifications of all grades of welding personnel, and the Institute’s relationship with educational authorities. It is also required to act as the Board of Examiners for various engineering qualifications and to assess applications for professional membership and registration with the Engineering Council.

Loyal Service Awards for contributions to the Membership Education and Registration Committee are granted to:

Eur Ing Mark Cozens FWeldI CEng	Joined 1986
Eur Ing Walter Doxford FWeldI CEng	Joined 1988
Mr Owen Gorton FWeldI	Joined 1972
Eur Ing David Rowe FWeldI	Joined 2004
Mr Joe Small MWeldI Eng Tech	Joined 2005
Mr Alan Rodgers*Ing FWeldI	Joined 1966

The Institute is grateful to all recipients for their support with the Membership Education and Registration Committee, and is proud to acknowledge their commitments through these Loyal Service Awards.

(*The Welding Institute is saddened to hear about the passing of Alan Rodgers in January of this year, and offer condolences to his friends and family).

Northern Ireland Branch

Introduction

The Loyal Service Award is given by The Welding Institute’s Professional Board, in recognition of outstanding service to the Branches and committees of The Welding Institute.

Role within The Welding Institute

Ken Barr SenMWeldI CEng, a Member of the Welding Institute since 1980, has been recognised for his outstanding contributions to The Welding Institute’s Northern Ireland Branch.

He has been a loyal Member of the Northern Ireland branch for over 30 years and is receiving a Loyal Service Reward to recognise his enormous contribution to branch activities over this period.

Ken was one of the original founding members of the Northern Ireland branch, and remains an active member today. Over his time at the branch, he has held various senior positions such as chairman, secretary and treasurer, and has been a committee member for around a decade. Ken continues to offer advice and support today, such as his help hosting events within the foundry of the local college.

The Welding Institute is extremely grateful for Ken’s significant contribution to the Northern Ireland Branch over 30 years, and would like to congratulate him on receiving a Loyal Service Award 2020.