This article briefly describes the process of welding and then describes some of the most popular methods of welding in use today.

Welding is the step pertaining to joining two or more segments, surfaces, plates and / or maybe pipes of identical material together through process of adding heat. In nearly all circumstances the two individual panels of the two materials melt and fuse together to form one when cooled. Some welded materials however don't melt like copper or brass. These materials are joined using brazing which is just like soldering but uses greater temperatures. Brazed metals are joined utilizing a filler, which is melted and put on each surface prior to being melted again and cooled to join both surfaces together. Until the end of the 19th Century all welding was doneaccomplished by forge welding. To forge weld a blacksmith would heat both the surfaces to be joined then hammered them until they joined together. Late in the 19th Century ARC Welding and Oxyfuel Welding were developed and electric resistance welding followed shortly after. Welding technology advanced in the First World War and Second World War where more streamlined, cheaper and quicker welding methods were demanded to improve wartime manufacturing. Ever since the Great Wars a great many other types of welding have been developed, some are manual, some semi-automatic while others fully mechanised. Manual Welding processes include: - ARC (MMA) Welding -Makes use of a welding power source to create an electric arc, or plasma discharge, by passing current through the air, between the welding electrode or welding rod and the material being welded which actually melts the material to be welded. Some form of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. Oxyacetylene Welding - Uses fuel gases combined with oxygen (not the atmospheric air) to weld or cut metals by heating. Tungsten (TIG) Welding -Utilizes a non-consumable tungsten electrode or welding rod to create an arc at the site of the weld. Some kind of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. A filler is normally used, though some welds, known as autogenous welds, do not require it. TIG welding is most commonly employed to weld stainless-steel and non-ferrous metals including aluminium, magnesium and copper alloys. Semi-Automatic processes include: - Metal Inert Gas (MIG) Welding - Whilst much like TIG welding, MIG welding relies on a consumable metal welding wire fed through the welding gun to generate an arc between the wire and the surfaces to be welded which melts the surfaces and the wire, which acts as the filler. Some kind of shielding or inert gas usually protects the welding area. A MIG welder is frequently much easier to use than an ARC welder because it combines the welding gun and filler removing the need to support the gun in one hand and the filler in the other. Fully mechanised processes include: - Resistance welding (ERW) - Of which spot welding and seam welding are the most commonly encountered and used widely in the automotive and appliance manufacturing industries. Spot welders use two copper electrodes which clamp the materials to be welded together and pass a very high current between the electrodes which caused the sheets to heat and a pool of molten metal to form between the two electrodes. Seam welders are similar to spot welders but use two disc shaped copper electrodes between that the materials pass forming one long weld between the sheets resulting in a welded seam. Laser and electron beam welding - Also heavily utilised in manufacturing industries. Laser welding replaces the electrodes used in spot welding by using a laser that gives a concentrated heat source enabling small deep welds and high volume welding rates. Laser welding is utilized extensively in the automotive manufacturing industries. Electron beam welding is a fusion welding process in which a beam of electrons are shot at the materials being welded. Upon impact the kinetic or movement energy of the electrons in converted into heat energy which heats the materials and any filler employed to weld the materials together. Electron beam welding is normally carried out a vacuum in order to avoid the dissipation of the electrons being shot.

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