P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
(OP)
I couldn't find a past thread on this so here is my question. Can you legally require a Professional Engineer to stamp a welding inspection report. I ran accross a specification that requires that the results of non destructive testing on a weld be stamped by a P.E. It seemed to me that since the testing agency is certified by AWS, and such certifications are not a requirement of being a P.E., that requiring a P.E. to assume liability for the adequacy of weld testing was outside the scope of professional engineering. Design the weld, fine, but take responsbility for the proper testing of the weld. I haven't run into this before but is seemed like a stetch to require it. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.






RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
A P.E. certainly might sign off on those kinds of reports and activities, if he had experience in the area of welding and ND testing, and had some inspectors working under him. And, there are many P.E’s who probably shouldn’t be overseeing that kind of work, since they have enough trouble designing welds; and no experience in ND testing, the welding process, procedures, etc. Most companies which do this kind of testing work will have their own engineers who would manage, review and sign off on this work, and they would likely be working as your sub contractor.
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
Contractually you can require a PE be responsible for oversight of this. Which then becomes a legal document. If the engineer who would provide a stamp did not oversee the work then they cannot legally be forced to stamp anything. Contractually if you require an engineer to do the work and there is a contract where they agree to do the work then they are obligated to do the work under contractual law.
An engineer is expected to only work within his/her area of expertise. If that area includes weld testing then there is no reason why you can't hire them and hold them to a contract (of which I believe there are).
Now, if you can't find an engineer who is qualified to do the work required by contract then you may be onto something for which shouldn't be asked for.
Maybe I misunderstand your question?
MAP
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
Thank you for the feedback.
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
Garth Dreger PE - AZ Phoenix area
As EOR's we should take the responsibility to design our structures to support the components we allow in our design per that industry standards.
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results
This didn't make any sense to us because our EOR had nothing to do with the Special Inspections other than to review the report. I think we lost the argument with the CBO and came up with some sort of a disclaimer to add to the seal.
RE: P.E. required to stamp Welding Inspection results