European Standard EN ISO 15614-1 versus Requirements of Ship Classification Societies

Abstract

The shipbuilding industry, from its inception to the present day, had evolved, and following the needs of the industry, classification societies were founded. They, as non-governmental organization, regulate the fabrication of new ships or offshore structures based on their own established codes, rules and standards. As, nowadays, the most widely used joining technique on shipbuilding activities is welding, these welded joints must be certified and ensured that accomplish the quality expected and allow repeatability for the specified material. Consequently, it required qualification of welding procedure which is driven by the rules of a selected Ship Classification Society. The European Standard EN ISO 15614-1 covers specification and qualification of welding procedure and is specifically applied to metallic material using arc and gas welding process. The entire title of the referred standard, Specification and qualification of welding procedures for metallic material – Welding procedure test – Part 1: Arc and gas welding of steels and arc welding of nickel and nickel alloys, clearly explicit it is one part of standard series which regulates welding procedure qualification and the method to be performed in this case is welding procedure test. This standard is used as guidance by Ship Classification Societies to set and establish their technical rules and standards. Due to numerous existence of Classification Societies and being shipbuilding a worldwide activity, shipyards eventually resort to most of them according to the project to be executed. So a great number of Welding Procedure Specification is generated and must be approved. For the welding engineers this is huge time consumed and for the company and/or project is a lot of money spent. According to all facts, adopting EN ISO 15614-1 as initial reference, a rereading of it is performed to in sequence draw a parallel among the rules associated with Welding Procedure Qualification of different Classification Societies. Resulting, then, on a paper pointing out differences and similarities on which further study could generate a more general document simplifying and shortening the process in terms of approval a new Welding Procedure Specification document.