Dear Nambi rajan,
It is quite common in the line pipe manufacturing industry. It is an automatic GMAW welding process equipped with mostly 1000A DC capacity power sources with CV mode. This power sources can be used for both GMAW/SAW automatic welding process and SAW pipe seams made with tack welds, the melting and coalescence of the tack weld into the final weld seam shall be verified by macrographic testing as required in the API 5L or ASTM specifications. Some manufacturer may remove the tack welds by grinding or machining after the Inside welding on the pipe which is also allowed as per API 5L(Refer Tack welds Clause 8.4 of API 5L).
Higher the pipe thickness, higher the wire diameter. I have used upto 4.8mm dia GMAW wire for 45mm thick line pipes with more than 1000A current for GMAW Tack welds.
The diameter 4mm and above are non standard size wires still it is available based on customer request(Refer ASME II C SFA 5.02M). So this diameter may not be indicated in the common datasheets/Specifications.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2026 at 12:34 PM Nambirajan Avudaiappan <nambirajanavudaiappan@gmail.com> wrote:
--Dear Experts,
During my review of the WPS, I noted that a 4 mm GMAW wire has been specified. However, this wire size is not listed in the manufacturer’s technical datasheet available on their website. Although the vendor has submitted the wire MTC, there appears to be a discrepancy between the documented specifications and the datasheet.
Additionally, I am surprised to observe that welding has reportedly been carried out at a current of 900 amps using this wire. I would appreciate your clarification on the feasibility and justification of this parameter, as it seems unusually high for GMAW applications.
Kindly provide your technical inputs and supporting references for the above points.
Best regards,
Nambi
https://materials-welding.blogspot.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/122787
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With Regards
Surendar Gunasekaran
+91-8883591861.
https://materials-welding.blogspot.com/
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