When preparing to cut a plate test coupon for side bend testing is it allowable to use thermal cutting method leaving enough material to machine down to the proper thickness?
It will take a LOT of machining to completely remove the thermally affected area of that coupon; rule-of-thumb it to slice off all the heat-blued area. Remember, this is to remove 'thermally affected' not the [narrow] HAZ.
holdpt,
I know that requirement is in ASME IX (QW 462.2) but I cannot see similar in AWS D1.1 ???
only
Figure 4.12
b These edges may be thermal-cut and may or may not be machined.
Have I missed it somewhere (I only have 2010 edition) ?
Yes, Almost all codes and specifications that I have dealt with "Allow" thermal cutting provided a certain amount of material is removed on side bends. The requirement to remove the thermal cut metal is referred to in D1.1 Fig 4.13, AWS B4.0 Figure 6.4, ASME Sec IX Figure QW462.22.
In actuality iit is a requirement in many cases to remove the material however there are some cases where subsequent removal is not required.
In ALL cases with guided bend tests, refer to the applicable code or standard.