ASTM A488

ASTM A488 – Standard Practice for Steel Castings, Welding, Qualifications of Procedures and Personnel

Description:

Abstract

This practice covers the qualification of procedures, welders, and operators for the fabrication and repair of steel castings by electric arc welding. The materials are categorized as carbon steel, carbon and carbon-manganese steel, low alloy steel, ferritic stainless steel, martensitic stainless steel, low carbon austenitic stainless steel, unstabilized austenitic stainless steel, austenitic stainless steel, duplex austenitic-ferritic stainless steel, precipitation-hardened austenitic stainless steel, nickel base alloy, steel castings, austenitic manganese. The orientation of the welds with respect to the horizontal and vertical planes of reference is classified into four positions, namely, flat, horizontal, vertical, and overhead. Four types of test shall be conducted in the qualification procedures such as tension test, bend test, Charpy impact test and radiographic test. Guided bend test specimens shall be prepared by cutting the test plate or pipe to form specimens of approximately rectangular cross section. Guided bend test specimens are of three types depending on which surface -side bend, face bend, or root bend is on the convex (outer) side of the bent specimen. A welding procedure must be set up as a new procedure and must be requalified when any of the changes in essential variables, inclusive, are made. Changes other than those listed may be made without requalification, provided the procedure is revised to show these changes. All welders and operators welding castings under this practice shall pass the welder qualification test. The welder or operator successfully performing the procedure qualification test is automatically qualified for performance.

Scope

1.1 This practice covers the qualification of procedures, welders, and operators for the fabrication and repair of steel castings by electric arc welding.

1.1.1 Qualifications of a procedure and either or both the operator or welder under Section IX of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code shall automatically qualify the procedure and either or both the operator or welder under this practice. P-number designations in the ASME grouping of base metals for qualification may be different than the category numbers listed in Table 1. Refer to Appendix X1 for a comparison of ASTM category numbers with the corresponding ASME P-number designations.

1.2 Each manufacturer or contractor is responsible for the welding done by his organization and shall conduct the tests required to qualify his welding procedures, welders, and operators.

1.3 Each manufacturer or contractor shall maintain a record of welding procedure qualification tests (Fig. 1), welder or operator performance qualification tests (Fig. 2), and welding procedure specification (Fig. 3), which shall be made available to the purchaser’s representative on request.

1.4 The values stated in either SI units or inch-pound units are to be regarded separately as standard. The values stated in each system may not be exact equivalents; therefore, each system shall be used independently of the other. Combining values from the two systems may result in nonconformance with the standard.

1.4.1 SI Units—Within the text, the SI units are shown in brackets.