The Welding Institute

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article (or section) may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article, especially its section layout, and relevant internal links. (help)
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

The Welding Institute, sometimes known as TWI or World Centre for Materials Joining Technology, is a nonprofit distributing independent research and technology organization based near Cambridge, UK. It conducts research on technologies for joining materials, such as welding, brazing and adhesive bonding through its trading arm TWI Ltd.

It also has offices and laboratories in Wales, Yorkshire and Middlesbrough in the UK, and establishments in Brazil, China, Middle East and South East Asia.

TWI owns patents on a number of joining and surfacing techniques. The solid-state welding process known as friction stir welding was invented in its laboratories in 1991.

The Clearweld® process was also developed by TWI employing a dye from the Gentex Corporation. It allows laser welding of transparent plastics and is now sold by Gentex.

TWI has also developed a means of manipulating an electron beam to produce bespoke, spiked surfaces. This Surfi-SculptTM process is finding application in joining dissimilar materials such as composites to metals and for specialised heat exchangers

[edit] History of the Organisation

The Welding Institute is a direct descendant of The Institution of Welding Engineers Ltd, which began in traditional British style when 20 men gathered on 26 January 1922 in the Holborn Restaurant in London and resolved to establish an association to bring together acetylene welders and those interested in electric arc welding. The date of registration under the Companies Act was 15 February 1923. Slow growth over the next ten years saw Membership grow to 600 with an income of £800 per annum.

In April 1934, the Institution merged with the British Advisory Welding Council to form a new organisation – The Institute of Welding. A symposium that same year, Welding of Iron and Steel held in conjunction with the Iron and Steel Institute, showed the need for a research programme, something clearly beyond the reach of the parsimoniously funded organisation. It took the threat of war, the dedication of officers of its Welding Research Council and modest funding from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), to generate the will and ability to commence such a programme in 1937. The Institute had no laboratories of its own and supported work, mainly in UK universities.

After the war, a move was made to transform the Welding Research Council to the recently established status of Research Association, thereby giving it access to DSIR funding in proportion to that raised from industry. At the time, professional institutions were debarred from acting as a Research Associations so the establishment of the British Welding Research Association (BWRA) in 1946 forced separation from the Institute.

BWRA bought Abington Hall, near Cambridge, UK, a country house and grounds in poor repair, for £3850 and commenced business under Allan Ramsay Moon as its Director of Research. The first welding shop was established in stables adjoining the house, and fatigue research commenced under Richard Weck in what was a former army hut.

BWRA also occupied a very fine house in London, 29 Park Crescent, which it converted into a metallurgical laboratory, with the butler’s pantry becoming the polishing room and the coachman’s quarters, the machine shop.

Ramsay Moon left after one year, disillusioned at the grant of only £30,000 from DSIR and it fell to Dr Harry Taylor to grow the organisation into a viable business. By the 1950s, the organisation was well respected and had sufficiently healthy finances that it could at last commence construction of purpose built laboratories in the grounds of Abington Hall.

The Institute of Welding had also thrived and bought property in London very close to the Imperial College of Science and Technology where it could exert a powerful influence on the future welding engineers of the country. It ran an expanding training programme through its School of Welding Technology and later the School of Non Destructive Testing.

In 1957, Dr Richard Weck, became Director of BWRA and ensured that the organisation continued to pioneer advances in welding methods, metallurgy and engineering understanding. The 1960s saw significant growth in the size and scope of BWRA, including its involvement in training. In general, these activities complemented those of the Institute of Welding but it became apparent that the two organisations would serve industry better by merging. The successor to DSIR, the Ministry of Technology, put forward no objection so a merger was agreed and a new body – The Welding Institute – was created on 28 March 1968. The combined income of the two parts resulted in the new organisation exceeding £1m in its first year.

Direct support from Government departments ceased in the 1970s but The Welding Institute (now termed TWI) not only survived this funding crisis but grew rapidly to become the foremost independent organisation offering contract research on welding and joining. It sought Industrial Members who, by paying an annual subscription, become owners of the organisation. The Membership money is invested in a core research programme, the results of which are available to all Industrial Members. Each Member can, however, commission confidential work in the laboratories or from expert consultants visiting its premises.

The original individual Professional Membership envisaged in 1922 has developed into a body of more than 7000 engineers. This Professional Division is a Licensed Member of the Engineering Council (UK). Both Industrial and Professional Members are represented on the Council that oversees TWI’s business and the operational activities of its Directors.

By 2007, the organisation had opened offices and laboratories at three further sites within the UK and owned facilities in China, SE Asia, South America, and the Middle East. Its turnover has risen to around £40m per annum and it employs more than 550 staff, at least 200 of whom are graduates and higher degree holders.