• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.56-72
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• 1999

Airborne concentrations of welding fumes in which 13 different metals such as Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Si, Sn, Ti, and Zn were analyzed were measured at 18 factories including automobile assembly and manufactures, steel heavy industries and shipyards. Air samples were collected by personal sampler at each worker's worksite(n=339). Blood levels of Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn were also measured from samples taken from 447 welders by atomic absorption spectrometry and compared with control values obtained from 127 non-exposed workers. The results were as follows ; 1. Among various welding types, $CO_2$ welding 70.2 % were widely used, shielded metal arc welding(SMAW) 22.1 % came next, and rest of them were metal inert gas(MIG) welding, submerged arc welding(SAW), spot welding(SPOT) and tungsten inert gas(TIG) welding. 2. Welding fume concentration was $0.92mg/m^3$($0.02{\sim}15.33mg/m^3$) at automobile assembly and manufactures, $4.10mg/m^3$($0.02{\sim}70.75mg/m^3$) at steel heavy industries and $5.59mg/m^3$($0.30{\sim}91.16mg/m^3$) at shipyards, respectively, showing significant difference among industry types. Workers exposed to high concentration of welding fumes above Korean Permissible Exposure Limit(KPEL) amounted to 7.9 % and 12.5 %, in $CO_2$ welding and in SMAW at automobile assembly and manufactures and 62.7 % in $CO_2$ welding, and 12.5 % in SMAW at shipyards, and 66.2 % in $CO_2$ welding and 70.6 % in SMAW at steel heavy industries. 3. Geometric mean of airborne concentration of each metal released from welding fumes was below one 10th of KPEL in all welding types. Percentage of workers, however, exposed to airborne concentration of metals above KPEL amounted to 16.8 % in Mn and 7.6 % in Fe in $CO_2$ welding; 37.5 % in Cu in SAW, 30 % in Cu in TIG; and 25 % in Pb in SPOT welding. As a whole, 76 Workers(22.4%) were exposed to high concentration of any of the metals above KPEL. 4. There were differences in airborne concentration of metals such as Al, Cd, Cr, Cu. Fe. Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Si, Sn, Ti and Zn by industry types. These concentrations were higher in shipyards and steel heavy industries than in automobile assembly and manufactures. Workers exposed to higher concentration of Pb above KPEI amounted to 7.4 % of workers(7/94) in automobile assembly and manufactures. In shipyards, 19.2 % of workers(19/99) were over-exposed to Mn and 7.1 % (7/99) to Fe above KPEL. In steel heavy industries, 14.4 %(21/146), 7.5 %(11/146) and 13 %(19/146) were over-exposed to Mn, Fe and Cu, respectively. As a whole, 76 out of 339 workers(22.4%) were exposed to any of the metals above KPEL. 5. Blood levels of Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb, and Zn in welders were $0.11{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$, $0.84{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, $424.4{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, $1.26{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$, $5.01{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$ and $5.68{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, respectively, in contrast to $0.09{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$, $0.70{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, $477.2{\mu}g/m{\ell}$, $0.73{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$, $3.14{\mu}g/100m{\ell}$ and $6.15{\mu}g/m{\ell}$ in non-exposed control groups, showing significantly higher values in welders but Fe and Zn.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.147-158
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• 2016

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the assessment of exposure to welding fume and heavy metals among construction welders. Methods: Activity-specific personal air samplings(n=206) were carried out at construction sites of three apartment, two office buildings, and two plant buildings using PVC(poly vinyl chloride) filters with personal air samplers. The concentration of fumes and heavy metals were evaluated for five different types of construction welding jobs: general building pipefitter, chemical plant pipefitter, boiler maker, ironworker, metal finishing welder. Results: The concentration of welding fumes was highest among general building pipefitters($4.753mg/m^3$) followed by ironworkers($3.765mg/m^3$), boilermakers($1.384mg/m^3$), metal finishing welders($0.783mg/m^3$), chemical pipefitters($0.710mg/m^3$). Among the different types of welding methods, the concentration of welding fumes was highest with the $CO_2$ welding method($2.08mg/m^3$) followed by SMAW(shield metal arc welding, $1.54mg/m^3$) and TIG(tungsten inert gas, $0.70mg/m^3$). Among the different types of workplace, the concentration of welding fumes was highest in underground workplaces($1.97mg/m^3$) followed by outdoor($0.93mg/m^3$) and indoor(wall opening as $0.87mg/m^3$). Specifically comparing the workplaces of general building welders, the concentration of welding fumes was highest in underground workplaces($7.75mg/m^3$) followed by indoor(wall opening as $2.15mg/m^3$). Conclusions: It was found that construction welders experience a risk of expose to welding hazards at a level exceeding the exposure limits. In particular, for high-risk welding jobs such as general building pipefitters and ironworkers, underground welding work and $CO_2$ welding operations require special occupational health management regarding the use of air supply and exhaust equipment and special safety and health education and fume mask are necessary. In addition, there is a need to establish construction work monitoring systems, health planning and management practices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.119-124
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• 2001

Currently knowledge of strain in welds has mainly been obtained form strain gaging method:; that is directly attaching most of the material to the gate. The very few non-contact method are still in the early stage. One of the non-contact methods is by the use of the laser that has high-level of the accuracy for the measurement, and this laser also has excellent characteristics on which many studies for its applications are focused throughout the many fields. The dissertation is on the measurement of the strain caused by the characteristics and the temperature changes of the TIG welded zone which is used with 3D ESPI system that is functionally modified through the laser ESPI system. This system employed the aluminum sheet-metal which are mainly used for the steel plate such as for the electronics, chemisry, food instrument and electronic appliances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.155-161
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• 2001

Currently knowledge of strain in welds has mainly been obtained from strain gaging method; that is directly attaching most of the material to the gage. The very few non-contact method are still in the early stage. One of the non-contact methods is by the use of the laser that has high-level of the accuracy for the measurement, and this laser also has excellent characteristics on which many studies for its applications are focused throughout the many fields. The dissertation is on the measurement of the strain caused by the characteristics and the temperature changes of the TIG welded zone which is used with 3D ESPI system that is functionally modified through the laser ESPI system. This system employed the aluminum sheet-metal which are mainly used for the steel plate such as for the electronics, chemistry, food instrument and electronic appliances.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.124-129
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• 2017

In this study, we report characteristics of friction stir welding (FSW) technique applied to Al-6005-T6 extruded sheets, which is a common material for railway car bodies. With the welding speed fixed at 300 mm/min, the revolution per minute (RPM) of the rotating tool was varied from 600 to 1800 RPM, with the aim at evaluating the resultant microstructure and mechanical behaviors. Comparison is also made with the conventional Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding technique. Unlike MIG, no micro-voids were observed for FSW specimens. Hardness measurement revealed that the increased heat input by increasing RPM results in widened heat affected zone (HAZ) and decreased hardness for HAZ due to grain coarsening. Hardness results for the nugget do no show difference. During tensile tests, specimens fractured at HAZ, and increasing rpm led to decrease of the yield stress and tensile stress for the selected RPM range, which is considered to be due to the grain coarsening for HAZ.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2018

Austenitic stainless steels have excellent corrosion resistance, durability and fire resistance. Especially, since STS304L among austenitic types is a low-carbon variation of STS304 and has excellent intergranular corrosion resistance, it can often be used under the welded condition without heat treatment after field welding. This paper investigated ultimate behaviors such as ultimate strength and weld metal fracture mechanism of STS304L fillet-welded connections with TIG(tungsten inert gas) welding through test results. Main variables of specimens are weld length and welding direction against loading. Fracture of specimens are classified into three modes(tensile fracture, shear fracture and block shear fracture). Ultimate strengths were compared according to the welding direction and weld length and TFW series with transverse fillet weld had the highest strength compared with other types(LFW series with longitudinal fillet weld and FW series with all round weld). It is known that current design specifications such as KBC 2016 and AISC2010 underestimated the strength of TFW and LFW specimens and provided unconservative estimates for FW specimens. Finally, strength equations were proposed considering material properties of STS 304L material.