Failure analysis of welds

Joining can be a weak link in the construction or product. Damage phenomena such as fatigue cracks, hydrogen cracks, stress corrosion and galvanic corrosion can occur near welds.

In addition, welds have sometimes a lower resistance against corrosion than the surrounding base material. This can certainly occur in stainless steels. BWI assists companies for finding solutions for these problems through application-focused investigations.

Research projects

The projects below are part of the long research strategy of the research center of the Belgian Welding Institute in the domain of failure analysis of welds and could count on a broad industrial interest.

CORONA

In this joint research project, different post-treatment techniques are investigated in different ways on welded stainless steel workpieces.

MULTICORR

Applied joint research project about galvanic corrosion, specifically focusing on multi-material joining.

FATCOR

Towards a longer lifetime of offshore wind turbine monopile structures by better understanding the fatigue corrosion mechanisms