| The Welding Institute | |
|---|---|
TWI Ltd (The Welding Institute) on Granta Park near Cambridge UK |
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| Abbreviation | TWI |
| Formation | 28 March 1968 |
| Type | Research association/institute |
| Legal status | Private company |
| Purpose/focus | Welding research |
| Location | Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge, CB21 6AL |
| Region served | Worldwide |
| Membership | Welding engineers |
| Affiliations | Engineering Council, International Institute of Welding |
| Website | TWI |
The Welding Institute or TWI is a research and technology organisation with a specialty in welding. The Welding Institute is based in Cambridgeshire, England, since 1946, and has several offices around the world.
Friction stir welding was introduced by The Welding Institute in 1991.[1]
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The Professional Division of TWI is a Licensed Member of the Engineering Council. It is situated at Granta Park, at the junction of the A11 and the terminus of the A505, three miles east of Duxford Museum. The nearest railway station is Whittlesford Parkway railway station.
Both Industrial and Professional Members are represented on the Council that oversees The Welding Institute’s business and the operational activities of its Directors.
The Welding Institute is a direct descendant of the Institution of Welding Engineers Limited, 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.
In the late 1940s, 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 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 Dr. Richard Weck.
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 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 bought property in London very close to the Imperial College of Science and Technology. It ran an expanding training programme through its School of Welding Technology and later the School of Non Destructive Testing.
In 1957, Richard Weck, became Director of BWRA and ensured that the organisation continued to research 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 not only survived this funding crisis but grew rapidly. The original individual Professional Membership envisaged in 1922 developed into a body of more than 7000 engineers.
By 2008, the organisation had opened offices and laboratories at three further sites within the UK (in Middlesbrough, Port Talbot and the Advanced Manufacturing Park, South Yorkshire) and operated facilities in the USA, China, Southeast Asia, South America and the Middle East.