IIW White Paper

5.2 Higher automation, productivity and quality control In every country, there is a relentless fight to maintain orders by increasing the productivity and improving the quality and the working environment. One simple means is to change the arc welding process from MMA to MIG/MAG or FCAW, which has been the case for many years in Western Europe, the USA and Japan as illustrated in Figure 5.10 .

Figure 5.10 Changes in welding procedures (Reproduced courtesy: ESAB)

One will certainly see a faster conversion from MMA in the Asian countries (62 % in China) than the ones shown in Figure 5.10. The amount of deposited weld metal in China is about 1.1M tons ( Figure 5.11 ) or more than Japan, USA and Europe deposited together. China consumes more than one third of the total for the world, which amounts to 2,923 million tons. China has much more submerged arc welding (13%) than Western Europe (5%) due to the higher amount of plate welding consumed in the construction and shipyard industries.

1200000

Figure 5.11 Consumption of weld metal 2004 in some countries and regions ( Reproduced courtesy: B. Pekkari)

1000000

800000

600000

ktons

400000

SAW FCW MIG/MAG MMA

200000

0

Sweden India Korea Asean Japan North America Arc welding will remain the most important joining process and its use will continue growing quickly in Asia as forecast in Figure 5.11 . Europe P.R. China

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Through Optimum Use and Innovation of Welding and Joining Technologies

Improving Global Quality of Life