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Did you know that Welding Alloys has a number of other brands? Alunox (specialized joining wires), Dalforsan (roll production for the steel industry), Speedmet (Aluminium wires), Track-Weld (maintenance for the rail industry), Produr and Kram Engineering (Industrial ceramic solutions). These companies have developed specific skills and engineering knowledge which have been transferred across the WA Group. Please contact your local WA branch for more details.

Edito

Dear colleagues, customers, and business partners around the worldI am delighted you have taken the time to read our newsletter, which is, as always, jam-packed with many of our latest products, developments, and activities.

It is incredibly hard to select the stories to include in these newsletters, since with 1100 staff in 35 countries there is no shortage of satisfied customer stories, innovative new products and solutions to communicate. However, our Marketing team has been hard at work going through it all, and we are very proud with the result!

It is often said that when Welding Alloys first entered our industry, we had to copy other existing products, but now we are firmly a market leader; we know this by the sheer number of products that our competitors try to copy from us. We are not flattered by this, but it does spur us on, driving our R&D activities, and accelerating new product launches and development.

As 2019 draws to a close, we are predicting another record year for sales, which is a testament to our customers’ loyalty as well as a strong appreciation and recognition of the work that we do. It is also testament to our staff’s hard work and dedication, whether they are out in the field visiting customers, in a workshop cladding a component, or in the office working on a CAD drawing (or the myriad of other roles in Welding Alloys).

A huge thank you to everyone who is involved in Welding Alloys’ continued success, and may I wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year celebration.

Dominic Stekly, Welding Alloys Group CEO

2 www.welding-alloys.com

Get to know yourWA Family

She started as HR assistant and rose through the ranks thanks to hard work and a positive attitude.

Lizelle loves her job at WASA, but she equally loves leaving the office and going home to her husband and two daughters.

We asked her some questions to get to know her a little better:

What gets you out of bed in the morning?Currently, the cries of my hungry infant daughter!In general, knowing I have to start the day, do what I need to do, live life and move forward.

Tea or coffee?Total coffeeholic.

How would you describe your day job to a child?I work with other moms and dads who draw on work papers for me and after they have worked hard, I must make sure they get money to buy food and toys.

What do you like most about your job?I enjoy the diversity of my role; various responsibilities and projects, reporting, payroll, and assisting employees.

What three words would you use to describe your role?Approachable.Helpful.Reliable.

If you could choose anyone in the world, who would you pick as your mentor?So much of who I am today is attributed to the example, guidance and support of my loving and caring father, my mentor of life.

Dream country to visit?USA.

What is your motto or personal mantra?It’s nice to be nice.I still believe in the age-old values of good manners and respect.

If you could switch lives with someone for a day who would it be?Ellen DeGeneresShe is a famous, wealthy celebrity who uses her power to make people laugh and to help the needy.

A movie that everyone should watch?It’s complicated with Meryl Streep.

Best advice you’d give your teenage self?Study harder! & be yourself.

Contents

• Get to know your WA Family 2

• The go-to provider of…- WA Consumables - Hydro: Green energy, like Welding Alloys! 3

Abrasion resistant hardfacing in a single layer! 3- WA Machines - Cost savings handed to you on a plate 3- WA IntegraTM - Integra leading the way in engineered

wear protection solutions 4

• Health & Safety 4

• What’s up in North America?- Pushing the limits of positional hardfacing 5

• What’s up in South America?- A successful Sugar Technical Seminar 6

• What’s up in Europe?- The latest from Dalforsan 6- Africa, a promising market 7

• What’s up in Asia ?- New RPMaxLife technology 8- Welding Alloys IntegraTM solving industrial challenges

in the Petrochemical industry! 8

Lizelle has been working as an HR officer for 10 years at Welding Alloys South Africa.

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The go-to provider of…WA ConsumablesHydro: Green energy, like Welding Alloys! Welding Alloys is the undisputed leader in Brazil for the supply of welding consumables for the repair and maintenance of hydraulic turbines, as proven by record sales of CAVITALLOY wire made since the beginning of this year.This base metal austenitic flux-cored wire is recommended locally by major OEM’s. Thanks to a finely tuned chemical composition and Cobalt content, it offers unparalleled resistance to cavitation, corrosion and erosion and significantly increases lifetime and performance of the turbines.It can be welded in semi-automatic or fully automatic mode. The hardness of the weld deposit is 240 HB and reaches 50HRC once work hardened. One of the major advantages of this wire is that it does not require heat treatment after welding.With its success in Brazil, the world’s third-largest hydro

producer, Welding Alloys aims to strengthen its presence in other countries. For this, we have developed a complete range of “Hydro” cored wires, both for the manufacturing and repair & maintenance of turbines. Promising new projects are underway, including preventive cladding tests with CAVITALLOY.

Thierry Blondeau, WA France Sales Area Manager

Abrasion resistant hardfacing in a single layer!Introducing the latest innovation from Welding Alloys: ROBODUR BN seamless cored wire. The newest edition to the ROBODUR family is a boride wire, which means now even more customers can benefit from great arc stability with our seamless technologyThis wire is specifically designed to only be used in one layer, as extreme harness (60-65 HRc) is obtained from the first pass! This makes it an ideal solution for components subject to severe wear by mineral abrasion.This wire is particularly suited to applications in the agriculture industry, but also mining and quarries. Workshops currently using automated welding equipment, or even robots, will never look back with ROBODUR BN, which guarantees they’ll end up

with a high quality deposit.Bastien Gérard, WA France Sales Welding Engineer

WA MachinesCost savings handed to you on a plateThe manufacture of hardfaced plate is a very competitive business and every cost saving has a big impact on profitability. The latest generation of rotary plate cladder manufactured by Welding Alloys France pushes productivity and cost savings to new levels. The four independent welding heads with oscillation speeds up to 100 cycles per minute allow high deposition rates while minimising distortion of the base plate. The “seam skip” function stops welding at the junction of the plates resulting in up to 2% reduction of wire consumption for a 60mm seam on a 3m plate. As well as cost savings, the “seam skip” function allows the plate to be cut along the non-welded section reducing exposure to Cr6. As standard, the machine is able to weld stringer beads or

oscillation with three patterns: straight, sine wave and chevron.The latest Rotary Plate Cladder to be delivered to one of our customers in the US is operating at a 25% faster rate than the customer’s traditional plate manufacturing equipment. Our team from the WA Machines department were there to ensure the smooth set-up of the equipment and will provide training and support for the machine over the coming weeks!

David Butler, WA Group Machines Manufacturing Director

Ultrasonic Cavitation Erosion Testing (ASTM G32-92)

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WA IntegraTM

Integra leading the way in engineered wear protection solutions

After multiple successes w i t h r e p a i r a n d maintenance solutions in the recycling industry,

Integra France decided t o t a k e o n a n e w challenge: the complete design and fabrication of a hammer crusher u s e d i n t h e m e t a l recycling industry – from creation of the plans, r ight through to final delivery to the customer. The new crusher was reverse-engineered b a s e d o n a u s e d crusher, which just goes to demonstrate t h e h i g h l e v e l o f engineering expertise of our Integra team.

Components of the used crusher were analysed and the appropriate materials were carefully selected for the new crusher, based on the function and demand of each part (wear, mechanical force, impact, etc.). The result? A complete, custom-engineered wear protection solution! The crusher has been designed to solve industrial maintenance issues and reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for the customer. Anti-abrasion steel and specially hardfaced areas guarantee an increase of the lifetime of the crusher and the removable parts facilitate the overall maintenance of the equipment. This turnkey solution is a revolution in the area of recycling, but could also be adapted for industries such as cement or wood. Integra will continue to adapt and develop similar solutions in order to offer the same benefits to customers operating in other industries.Welding Alloys Integra prides itself on providing innovative, engineered wear protection solutions that improve efficiency and reduce costs for our customers - the design and fabrication of this new crusher is a great example of that!

Aurélien Mougenot, WA France Integra Manager

and Arnaud Jecker, Integra Project Leader

Health & SafetyAt Welding Alloys Group, we take our responsibilities towards Health & Safety seriously.We take pride in our achievements because Health and Safety is important as it protects the well-being of employers, contractors, visitors and customers alike. Looking after Health and Safety also makes good business sense and Awareness training is at the heart of getting things right. Various training on health and safety subjects are given to people at all levels from directors, managers, office / admin and shop floor workers, including Evacuation procedures, First Aid, Accident prevention and response, Fire prevention and response along with our own in house presentation called “Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk” on how to influence safe behaviour. Awareness training is critical for reducing risks and incidents in the workplace and in 2019 we entered a partnership with a company called SAFETYCARE to use their Safetyhub programme, the most advanced safety video content platform in the world. This new programme will be launched in 2020. Safetyhub is a video streaming service that allows our employees to watch a wide variety of safety training content. The Safetyhub gives all participants access to a comprehensive video library that covers every major workplace safety issue. The videos focus on the first basic principles of a safety topic and it is available globally. Videos are available in regional languages or with multiple language subtitles for easy understanding.

Health and safety training is important because it has the capacity to unite employers and employees in the pursuit of a common goal – to create a safe and secure workplace that ensures the safety and success of everyone involved. We will therefore continue to focus on this in 2020. In 2020, there will also be another WA Health & Safety week and we will continue to conduct H&S audits worldwide, as we strive toward our goal of zero accidents! Go well, go safe and return to your family at the end of your working day!

Gordon Spence, WA Group Health & Safety manager

Electrical Awareness Training SPEEDMET.

Fire Prevention and Extinguisher Training REPTEC.

Welding AlloysSafety First

Always

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What’s up inNorth America?Pushing the limits of positional hardfacingFor a number of years now, the hardfacing market has been desiring a highly abrasion resistant hardfacing wire which can be welded out of position. Chromium carbide hardfacing wires (such as HC-O) do provide high abrasion resistance but are limited to in position welding. The market then had to settle on using out of position tool steel like wires (i.e. LP-G) or chrome carbide stick electrodes. The tool steel like wires gave the out of position capabilities, but then lacked in abrasion resistance. The chrome carbide stick electrodes gave the required abrasion resistance but are more costly and less efficient than hardfacing wires.

Welding Alloys USA has answered the market demand by developing HARDFACE HCP-O 1/16” (1.6mm). HARDFACE HCP-O is a true chrome carbide wire designed for out of position of hard primary carbides in a tough austenitic matrix, which is suitable for hardfacing components subject to severe abrasive wear and moderate impact. HARDFACE HCP-O 1/16” can be welded flat, ID pipe, OD pipe and out-of-position in (but not limited to) horizontal, overhead, vertical down and vertical up. Flat and horizontal position welding can be done with any type of arc transfer. For vertical and over-head welding it is recommended that the arc mode be short-circuit transfer.

WA USA rose to the challenge by proposing a wire that perfectly meets the expectations of the current market!

Stephanie Amburgey, WA USA Metallurgical Engineer

6 www.welding-alloys.com

A successful Sugar Technical SeminarThis summer, more than 40 engineers from 13 different sugar mills located in 6 different countries gathered together in Escuintla, Guatemala to discuss the latest advances in extending the life of sugar maces. The seminar included real-world experiences and presentations by Pablo De Leon from Ingenio Magdalena, Jose Ramos from Ingenio Central Izalco and David Oseida from Ingenio San Diego. Amongst the most popular presentations were “The Importance of shielding the maces prior to starting the harvest season”, “The Importance of a good program for applying

hardacing during the harvest season”, “Fabrication of other parts that wear in the Sugar Mill” and “New Hardfacing Alloys for the Sugar Industry”. Overall, the seminar was of great value to all participants and they are all are looking forward to the next seminar to continue sharing their individual experiences and challenges, in order to maximise the life of their machinery. Congratulations to all the personnel from Welding Alloys Reptec for hosting another successful Sugar Seminar.

Joachim Alexandre Dorner, Reptec Managing Director

What’s up inSouth America?

What’s up inEurope?The latest from DalforsanThe orders keep rolling in for us here at Dalforsan. This year has been great for our order book, and now 2020 is looking like it will be an even stronger year. Firms are starting to see the value in TCO (total cost of ownership) and opting to invest in quality equipment, rather than purchasing the cheapest option. Dalforsan’s biggest customer for 2019, a steel plant in Europe, is also starting to follow this trend of considering TCO during the purchasing process. This is great news for Dalforsan, as we deliver premium quality products.Regarding our inter project, we have invested in a Puma 800 machine that is up and running full time, thanks to its extended capacity, we have managed to get into some new markets

that we could not reach previously. Dalforsan is expanding its facilities with a section 4 to be able to meet the new demands, because production is at maximum capacity currently. During recent years, Dalforsan has seen a trend that end customers are looking for complete roll lines, due to a focus on core business. This places higher demand on the space in the workshop.We need new warehouses to store our finished products, and products in progress. We are also building a new assembly line, due to the demand for complete roll lines, which has increased significantly during 2019.

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What’s up inEurope?For 2020, Dalforsan plan to develop the business in the US market, we are working closely with Welding Alloys USA and have cracked some new deals with customers there. With the new products that Welding Alloys have developed for the steel market, Dalforsan are really looking forward to ‘blue ocean’ opportunities with 4142 NX-S and 414 NX-S.

Dan Norman, Dalforsan Sales Manager

Africa, a promising marketDeveloping our activities in the African market remains a major objective for Welding Alloys. We plan to do this through focusing on promoting our Repair & Maintenance range of welding consumables, mainly in sugar refineries and the mineral industry. WA tubular electrodes, which are easy to use with customer equipment, offer many advantages over coated electrodes and are opening doors with potential new customers.At the same time, our self-shielded flux cored wire with TOPCASE 425-4 package has also proved to be of interest - nine unitswere sold last month for use in a mine in Mali, with the strongprobability that they will do the same, soon, for other sites.

Welding Alloys’ success in Africa is due to the quality of our products and our ability to support the customer with our technical expertise, which is focused toward reducing their TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). We can also count on our local partners to ensure distribution, one of which has created hubs in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Mauritius. Stock orders will arrive very soon; the first was delivered to Mauritius earlier this year (test location).It’s looking like 2020 is set to be a year of increased business in Africa.

Thierry Blondeau, WA France Sales Area Manager

New building in progress. Axles from our new Puma machine.

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What’s up inAsia?RPMaxLife technology

Welding Alloys IntegraTM solving industrial challenges in the Petrochemical industry!

High pressure roller presses are used in the cement industry to crush minerals such as clinker, limestone and slag. The abrasive nature of these minerals results in wear on grinding rolls. The replacement cost of rolls of a roller press is quite expensive. For this reason, cement manufacturers often have their roller press rolls refurbished at a much lower cost by means of hardface welding.Through years of experience and innovation, Welding Alloys has developed RPMaxLife technology to extend the life of rolls upon refurbishment. With RPMaxLife technology, we can ensure maximum plant availability by reducing wear. Welding Alloys (Far East) has refurbished a pair of rolls of a roller press for a Malaysian Cement Company and it has been working for more than 14,000 hours without any intervention for hardfacing. In addition, no indication of spalling was observed on both rolls during the latest inspection conducted on 15th August 2019 (more than 14,000 hours). The first tramp metal passed through the rolls was observed on 21st Jan 2018 at 4658 running hours.

The conventional hardfacing techniques for roller presses with Titanium Carbide or Niobium Carbide hardfacing alloys typically results in repair or refurbishment after 3,500 hours of grinding. As seen in the case above, RPMaxLife technology extends the service life of rolls far beyond this.

Dr. Venugopal Thota,Managing Director WA Far EastBarry Prout, WA Far East Director & Integra BU Manager

In early 2017, Welding Alloys Thailand received the challenging request to clad a stainless steel 316 column with Alloy C276 by Alunox in a Thai chemical refinery plant. The estimated remaining thickness of the column was only 6mm, which is very thin and there was a high risk that it would be deformed by cladding. However, this is how the project began: the mock-up test was done in 2018 in order to confirm the appropriate cladding procedure and the new water-cooling system and reinforcement were applied to prevent deformation. In May 2019, the 45m2 cladded and patched area including the additional internal pipe and nozzle cladding were done successfully and we even received a safe performance recognition achievement by the customer. Thanks to the Welding Alloys' cladding solution, the customer can benefit from extended lifetime of the column and cost savings from not having to replace the column. Yet another successful IntegraTM solution provided to a satisfied customer.

Athimet Choomong, Vietnam General Sales Manager

Welding Alloys Group News editor: Charlotte PfaffPhotos credits: Welding Alloys Group

Any questions? Send us an email at marketing@welding-alloys.com