Blowout at the 60 psi mark cost me six hours last Tuesday

I was pressure testing a small drum we'd been repairing over at the Jacobs plant in Baton Rouge, and at 60 psi the weld let go on the bottom head. Loud pop, then air rushing out for a solid minute before we could isolate it. Turns out the preheat wasn't even on the job card, so the root pass just never fused right. Anyone else seen this happen where the paperwork skips a critical step like preheat?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesleypatel1mo ago

Hold up, was this a case where the welding procedure spec said preheat but the job card just didn't reflect it, or was the whole WPS missing that step? I've seen both, but the scarier one is when the engineer just assumes the shop knows to do it. Six hours of work down the drain because a clerk typed it up wrong, or because the welder had a bad habit of skipping steps?

david_stone1mo ago

Hey @wesleypatel, that sounds rough, hang in there.