Welding Ti-6Al-4V

 

Welding Ti-6Al-4V

 

Having mastered welding of commercially pure titanium we decided to continue our work on Ti-6Al-4V alloy of titanium which is called the work horse alloy in defence and aerospace industries.

This alloy has the following mechanical properties:

Ultimate tensile strength: 950MPa or 138kpsi

Yield strength: 880MPa or 128kpsi

Elongation: 10 to 14 percent.

These are typical values. Since Ti-6Al-4V is a heat treatable alloy the above strengths can be increased by suitable heat treatment.

For aerospace applications, the above alloy containing very low oxygen and nitrogen designated as ELI grade(Extra low interstitial) is used.

The welding of Ti-6Al-4V is not different from that of commercially pure titanium except that we used ultra pure argon gas to keep the interstitial low. Ti-6Al-4V is welded by TIG welding using commercially pure titanium filler wire or by matching composition filler wire or by the so called half alloy which is Ti-3Al-2V filler wire. The selection of wire depends upon the final property desired in the final weld.

We welded Ti-6Al-4V in annealed condition, solution annealed and solution annealed and aged condition. We also used commercially pure filler wire, matching composition filler wire and also half alloy wire. Welded test coupons were subjected to extensive testing. Test results were tabulated so that we have data bank select what type of filler wire to use for a specific application.

 

The data so collected by us was used for defence application about which I will later.

 

I was selected to establish R&D in BHPV. BHPV is established to design,manutcure and erect equipment needed for petroleum.petrochemicals, cryogenic and chemical and nuclear industreis. When a decision was taken to establish R&D, post graduate engineers from design department were transferred to form the core R&D team. We created four sections namely, chemical engineering group, cryogenic engineering group, manufcturing technolgy group and welding technology group.
Chemicl engineering group is responsible for developing computer programs for the design of equipment.
Cryogenic engineering is responsible for developing new cryogenic equipment and processes.

Timid MD 6

After the sadist left an in-house person was selected as the MD. He was a very timid person. He was afraid to take any bold decision. In the name of building consensus he used to conduct meetings and act as decided in the meeting. He was in the habit of quoting proverbs and never told any thing directly. But inspite of all these deficiancies company progressed and we managed to get some export orders. He had some personal problems which affected his decision making.
After completing his first term he managed to get a second term of five years. In the second spell he sorrounded himself with people who gave him wrong advice. He had to resign after two years. I had left the company soon after he got his second term. I learnt that during the wage negotiations with the Workers Union he was wrongly advised to agree for all their demands for the sake of harmonious relations with the Union which bankrpted the organisation. Financially company was finished and he left the Organistion a disillusioned man.

A Sadist CMD

He was the 5th CMD who joined us. He had a lot of political support at the Center which greased his way to the top post at an young age. He came from a factory and people had difficulty in recognising what product it was manufacturing. He had a shock of his life when he arrived to take charge. He had never seen such gigantic equipment beng manufactured.When he met the executives for the first time he realised that they are more experianced or more qualified than him. He hid his inadequacy by insulting even the most senior person in meetings. So much so that when he called for meetings we used to go fully ready for being insulted. He specially targetted one person who was too soft and he al;most went mad. But if someone defied him he did not know how to handle him. Technically he was incompetent and he was of the firm opinion tha welding electrodes were being coated with cowdung mixed with some chemicals! We were predominantly a welding industry welding varoius types of materials and he just could not understand why we need different types of electrodes for welding different steels! Once when I said that an equipment had developed stress corrossion cracking, he did not understand what I was talking and said"crack is in your head". He wanted me to rectify the defect in one week.When I told him that it can't be done in one week he said " if you can't do I will find some one to do it in one week." The job was so specialised that every one he asked to take the responsibility declined. Finally he called me and asked me how much time I need, I gave a time frame which he accepted tamely . In all this exercise we had lost almost a month.

Finally, he used his politcal connections to get a higher post and he left us. We all left a sigh of relief. His tenure was one of the worst period in our organisation. He destroyed the self confidence of several people

CMD from power sector

The 4th CMD was from a PSU manufacturing power boilers,turbines,condensers etc. He was trained to think big in his previous posting. Our organisation was too small for his thinking. Fortunately for him, it was a boom period and country needed to expand refineries,fertiliser plants,steel plants etc. Our company had the capacity to manufature distillation columns, storage spheres, high pressure heat exchangers, air seperation units etc.He capitalised on our strengths and liaised with the Chief Executives of refineries,fertilisers.steel plants etc. and brought huge orders. When we executed those orders our turn over jumped significantly. In a matter of few years our turnover was ten times more than what it was when joined.
He was a very nice man and taught us how to net work and how to think big.

`MD from telecommuniction secor.

Last time I made a mistake. The second MD was from the Telecommunication sector.He was soft spoken but firm in his decisions.Within few days of his joining he realised that the morale of the organisation is down. He also found out that reason for low morale was that many of the people have not been promoted for a long time citing the reason that the Comapny was not making a profit. He rejected this argument and asked the Finance department to work out cost implictions if every body in the Organistion is promoted. The figures came out to be a small sum as most people were stagnating at the top of the scale. Promoting to next scale did not give them much monrtary benifit but boosted their ego. In confidence with Heads of  the Departments most of the deserving candidates were promoted. This had an electrfying effect on workers and productivity increased considerably. It is in his regime R&D got a boost.We recruited people from IIT's and had a seperate building and work shop.MD  After two years he left to join from where he had come. Even though his stay was short he left a losting impression on the Organistion.

MD2

MD2

MACHINE TOOL SPECIALIST

The next MD came from a public sector specialising in machine tools. In his previous organisation he had worked with budgets. He was horrified with our system of working. We never knew that we must have a budget and generally we did not know which product was making a loss or which was making a profit. There was no financial discipline. We never worked keeping budgets in mind. Requests beyond contractual obligations were accepted without additional price. We were not aware how much money we were spending on materials and how much money on labour etc. . The first thing he did was to call for a meeting of all senior officers and explained to them that from now onwards that we will be working for a budget. We prepared all sorts of budgets. For each work order we had budgets for materials, consumables like electrodes, travel, entertainment etc. All these budgets were scrutinised, pruned and finally put up to MD for his approval. He will go through each budget and further prune if necessary and approve. This was our bible and whenever we had to procure materials, consumables etc. the actual was compared with the budget and expenditure will be approved only when the actual was within the budget. If we exceeded the budget we were asked to renegotiate the prices or re workout our figures to bring in within the budget .Initially we were sceptical of the process. But by the end of the year we had made a small profit. From then on we never looked back. Everybody talked of budget and was extended to stationery, transport etc.We looked in to the such seemingly insignificant items as file folders.We discovered that on an average we were buying 10000 file folders per month which means every worker can get on an average of 3 folders per month. Every department used to indent its requirements with inflated figures. We brought in a system whereby the departments have to give a statement how many files they already have and how many thy need for the current month. These figures were consolidated and reordering of 50 per cent of the total was done. Also we made one person responsible for receiving and actually counting the files received. Such small things brought a financial discipline. His greatest achievement was breaking an illegal strike .He left BHPV to join his parent company. He made a great impact on us as to how run a business on sound financial principles.

 

 

 

    

Army General

SOME OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVES I HAVE WORKED WITH

 

The first CEO was a senior officer from the army. As all army officers he was a strict disciplinarian. He was with the organisation during Emergency. He was very particular thatall people should be inside the factory before the siren went off i.e before 8am. He had instructed the gates should be closed and any on coming after the siren should not be allowed however high he is in the hierarchy. Late comers should apply half-a-day's leave and come for the afternoon session. But this boomeranged on him. All of us used to work beyond 4.30 pm voluntarily to complete our work. He used to hold meetings after 4.30 pm which used to go up to 8.30pm and sometimes beyond. We refused to attend meetings after 4.30 pm giving one excuse or the other. He just could not do anything. Finally he relented and gave a grace time of five minutes which means we should reach by 8.05 am.He retired soon after Emergency.

Guru weld

SOME OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVES I HAVE WORKED WITH

 

The first CEO was a senior officer from the army. As all army officers he was a strict disciplinarian. He was with the organisation during Emergency. He was very particular thatall people should be inside the factory before the siren went off i.e before 8am. He had instructed the gates should be closed and any on coming after the siren should not be allowed however high he is in the hierarchy. Late comers should apply half-a-day's leave and come for the afternoon session. But this boomeranged on him. All of us used to work beyond 4.30 pm voluntarily to complete our work. He used to hold meetings after 4.30 pm which used to go up to 8.30pm and sometimes beyond. We refused to attend meetings after 4.30 pm giving one excuse or the other. He just could not do anything. Finally he relented and gave a grace time of five minutes which means we should reach by 8.05 am.He retired soon after Emergency.

I am a mechanical engineer who graduated from university college of engineering bangalore in 1961. Later I joined Indian Institute of Sci.ence for my post graduation. I passed out from IISc and joined Central Mechanical Engineering Reearch Institute(CMERI) at Durgapur West Bengal. I got a Government of India scholarship to study in Russia. I joined Moscow Power Institute. Moscow in 1968 for Ph.D programme and I specialised in Electron Beam Welding. I completed my Ph.D in 3.5 years and returned back to India to join CMERI. I worked for
3 years in CMERI and left to join Bharat Heavy Plate and Vessels (BHPV)as Chief of R&D. I worked in BHPV for 20 years and left BHPV to join a private sector as Director.