Why does nobody talk about how ASME Section IX changed last year?

I was reviewing some weld procedures for a job in Baton Rouge and found out they quietly updated the essential variables for GTAW in 2023. Caught me off guard because nobody in my shop mentioned it. Anybody else notice this or am I the only one digging through the code updates?

2 comments

2 Comments

roses692d ago

...and that's because nobody actually reads the code updates until their auditor shoves it in their face during a surveillance visit. I found out the hard way last fall when my CWI buddy called me laughing because I'd been qualifying procedures with the old groove weld thickness limits for a month. The 2023 changes were snuck in like a ninja in the night, probably buried on page 47 of some revision summary nobody bothers to open. Typical ASME move - change something important but make it sound like a footnote so only the poor souls doing annual training catch it.

river3512d ago

Tbh I read something from the AWS Welding Journal a few months back that said the 2023 groove weld thickness changes caught like 70% of shops off guard during the first round of audits. @roses69 you're not wrong about it being buried either. I heard the revision summary for Section IX that year was 14 pages long and the groove weld limits were on page 9 in a paragraph that looked exactly like the other 30 line items. Classic move to put a big change in a spot where nobody bothers to double check.