Welding isn’t the only way to assemble piping. Sometimes contractors thread pipe together and sometimes they use flanges. Flanges appear to be simple to assemble—and they are—but when you don’t want them to leak, certain practices need to be followed. Those practices are addressed in ASME standard PCC-1, Guidelines for Pressure Boundary Bolted Joint Assembly.
What is Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion (MIC) and why do contractors need to know anything about it? Well, it turns out that MIC can negatively affect your profits.
On occasion we get questions from our members who would like to use backing flux in lieu of purging when making welds on stainless steel or other corrosion resistant materials. This bulletin describes an experiment conducted by NCPWB Consultant Walter Sperko where he had a colleague make stainless steel butt welds without any protection of the root of the weld, with inert gas backing, with backing flux and with flux-coated wire.
When reviewing a Welding Procedure Specification (WPS) or a welder qualification record, the term “backing” frequently appears. In some cases, backing is required, while in others, it is optional. Backing can take various forms, including metal, non-fusing metal, nonmetallic materials, or even weld metal. But what exactly is “backing,” and why is it important in welding?
The E6010 electrode is a wire encased in cellulose held together with salts and minerals. These electrodes penetrate better than low-hydrogen electrodes like E7018 when making root passes, making it easier to make a good root pass. However, E6010 introduces hydrogen into the weld creating a risk of cracking, and this article shows when its use should be limited.
Piping codes are standard industry practice, and failure to agree on the one that applies to your work can result in ugly disputes with customers. Customer specifications can have inspection requirements that can result in repairs to welds that you did not plan for. Welders can make welds that put your business at risk. This article highlights what you can do to avoid these risks.
While there is a lot of buzz about modern waveform controlled power sources and how they make it easier for a welder to make the root pass, the basics of MIG welding have not changed. This article describes the technical aspects of GMAW, explains how the metal gets from the wire to the workpiece (transfer modes), and highlights what contractors need to pay attention to when bringing the process into their shop or field fabrication site.
This quick reference tool provides critical information on 84 safety and health topics that are specific to work performed by mechanical service technicians, including information on the newest and most frequently used refrigerants, substantive changes to NFPA 70E, and new information on how to properly administer CPR.
This quick reference tool provides critical information on everything from aerial lift safety to preventing overexposure to zinc to keep mechanical construction workers safe. It includes new information on administering CPR, beryllium, recent changes to NFPA 70E, and more.
Quick rescue is paramount to keeping workers safe while they are suspended in fall arrest harnesses after falling from an elevation. Having a safety program and plan in place to address the needs of these workers is critical to minimizing suspension trauma and meeting OSHA requirements. MCAA’s model program and accompanying model plan can be tailored to address various project fall arrest system applications and ensure the safety of your company’s most important asset, its workers.
The use of BIM and related technologies and processes that leverage data from models is delivering meaningful impact to mechanical and HVAC contractors on a wide variety of measures, including cost and schedule improvements, enhanced productivity, better collaboration between stakeholders and better worker safety. This research report quantifies other benefits to users and the challenges related to leveraging BIM to increase industry understanding of which factors will most effectively drive growth and expand future use.
Improved productivity and quality are among the benefits driving interest in, and use of, prefabrication and modular construction today. This research report quantifies other benefits to users and the challenges related to each to increase industry understanding of which factors will most effectively drive growth and expand future use.
Motion is money and safety in the construction business, which relies on employees’ physical movements to accomplish the job at hand. This video will teach your supervisors to recognize opportunities to minimize movement, leading to safer and more profitable jobs.
Supervisors will learn:
Protect your workers with the safe work practices in this guide. It covers the hazards associated with RF radiation exposure, the health effects posed by these hazards, and how to avoid overexposure. A checklist helps workers assess their work areas for sources of RF radiation. See the related tools for educating your workers.
MCAA sponsored the 2018 Construction Technology Report, produced by MCAA’s Technology partner, JBKnowledge. As part of our sponsorship, MCAA published an MCAA-Focused report that segments out responses given by MCAA members and compares them to the rest of the construction industry. With this new report, MCAA members can not only see how their companies compare to other MCAA members, but how our membership compares to the industry at large.
This video teaches viewers to identify warning signs and take appropriate action to prevent workplace violence. It also shows viewers how to protect themselves and others if they find themselves in an active workplace violence situation.
This pocket guide highlights key training points from MCAA’s Workplace Violence Prevention and Protection Safety Training Video.
This documentation sheet can be used to document who has received the training contained in MCAA’s Workplace Violence Prevention and Protection Safety Training Video.
