Welding Machines & Automation
Remember the 80’s movie, Flashdance? The female lead, Jennifer Beals, was a welder by day in a Pittsburgh steel mill and for many people that was their first glimpse of what a welder did for a living.
Despite what the movies portray, welding is of course a serious job. It is used to join pieces of metal together and is a very skilled trade. Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing fusion. In addition to melting the base metal, a filler material is typically added to the joint to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to form a joint that, based on weld configuration (butt, full penetration, fillet, etc.), can be stronger than the base material. Pressure may also be used in conjunction with heat or by itself to produce a weld. Welding also requires a form of shield to protect the filler metals or melted metals from being contaminated or oxidized.
