THE APPLICATION OF ELECTRIC WELDING TO SHIP 



CONSTRUCTION. 



By H. Jasper Cox, Esq., Member. 



[Read at the twenty-sixth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in 



Philadelphia, November 14 and IS, 1918.] 



INTRODUCTION. 



Few subjects offer as great inducements for experimental research as that of 

 the application of electric welding to shipbuilding and marine engineering, and it is 

 doubtful whether, in the whole range of applied science intimately concerned with 

 practical developments in both these industries, there is scope for greater potentiality 

 than under the various headings into which the subject of electric welding naturally 

 divides itself. 



Although electric welding, and especially arc welding, has been used for a long 

 time to great economical advantage in ship repair work and marine engineering, it 

 has been but little understood, and to say that only within recent months has any 

 serious attempt been made to analyze the elements of the art and determine the 

 underlying scientific principles involved is not overstating the case. 



The skill of the operator was too long the determining factor in forming pub- 

 lic opinion on welding, when scientific analysis would have demonstrated that the per- 

 centage of failures was largely due to vain endeavors to apply the welding process 

 in defiance of natural laws. Good welds have been made for years, but, in the hap- 

 hazard application of the art, worthless work was sometimes turned out for which 

 no other explanation can be offered than the welder's ignorance of the physics of his 

 art. As evidence of the good results to be expected from the determination of cor- 

 rect practice in welding, we need but turn to the high degree of efficiency prevail- 

 ing in railway shops where electric welding has for many years been used on a large 

 scale, both in the construction and repair of locomotives and rolling stock, and 

 where the work consists of repeat operations of the same job, so that there has 

 been established a standard practice evolved through the process of examination 

 and elimination. 



In marine repairs, electric welding has long been in use for such work as frac- 

 tured sternposts, rudders or plates, but owing to the element of uncertainty re- 

 ferred to above, these repairs have usually been considered tentative and approved 

 subject to periodical inspection. In general, however, the periodical inspections 

 have shown that such repairs withstand the test of service and time ; thus, in spite 

 of these unknown elements, confidence has gradually been established. 



The subject of electric welding received considerable impetus in this country 



