WOW Episode 05: Atomic Hydrogen Welding

Weld of the Week Episode 5

What if there was an arc welding process that could weld thick sections and fine mesh metal screens? And did not require grounding of the part. And could automatically weld over scale and rust by reducing oxides? What if it could apply composite tungsten carbide coatings without melting the carbide particles? What if it could weld steel, copper, aluminum, and stainless?

That would be Atomic Hydrogen Welding (AHW) invented 100 years ago by Dr. Irving Langmuir a Nobel Laureate working for GE. Now it is considered an obsolete process, but there is much to be learned by studying the history of welding. We even have an example of a GE AHW welding machine in the ARC Specialties museum, which is always open to visitors!

In today's episode, I demonstrate and discuss Atomic Hydrogen Welding. We used a Xiris Automation Inc. arc video camera to document the welding process.

When ARC Specialties started building robotic PTAW overlay systems for the rock bit industry we eliminated one of the last industrial applications for Atomic Hydrogen Welding. But as I mentioned in my first paragraph, there are some fascinating and unique aspects to the process. Watch our video below and leave your comments.

Dan Allford

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