Seminar on Welding in Steel Plants

It gives me great pleasure to be here with you today at this Seminar on Welding in Steel Plants, specially organised by the Indian Institute of Welding, as a part of its Silver Jubilee Celebrations. I am thankful for the opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you all. At the outset I would like to place on record my appreciation of the dedicated and sustained good work that has been done by the Indian Institute of welding and wish this Institute more achievements and contributions in this field, which is assuming greater importance and offers new challenges as 'Technologies' are developing and 'Customer Demands' are getting more rigorous. The topic selected is quite appropriate as the Steel Industry is a basic one and today Welding has a key role in almost every facet of steel plant operations.

Welding is extensively employed in an integrated iron and steel plant for the fabrication of new equipments and reconditioning of existing ones. In either application, the basic objective is to conserve the two main resources - money and material. Today, welding is playing an ever increasing role in Maintenance Management. While sharing my thoughts with you, I shall be confining myself to essentially the role of welding in integrated steel plants and give typical examples from Tata Steel's experience. Such case studies, encompassing a wide spectrum, will effectively underscore how welding could be an effective technological tool in steel plant maintenance.

These case studies will detail the methods and materials employed and results achieved. Examples of manufacture of equipment by welding will be given. Finally a reference will be made to the methods of inspection and some suggestions on future needs.