You PMI equipment will not provide truly accurate quantitative results. Why are you using it for such a weld? In all my decades of experience with PMI of ASME Codes related carbon steel systems, I have never seen such a requirement. We did use portable spectrographic equipment to asssure appropriate Ni content in weld metal per client on a North Sea gas processing plant.

Reference ASME Section II, Part C, SFA-5.18

Table 1 Manganese requirement range for ER70S-6 = 1.40 - 1.85 weight percent.

Also reference ASME Section IX, Table QW-442. ER70S-6 is A-No. 1 weld metal. Maximum Allowable Manganese = 1.60 weight percent.

Manganese percentage is acceptable, per ASME Section IX Specifications.

As weldstan stated, this is an unusual requirement for Carbon Steel. Typically, PMI is not required for these materials.

I would recommend lightly grinding another few small areas around the same weld and see what the results are.

One other thing to consider. Industry standard for PMI results is usually accepted for +/- 10%.

You will have to check your customer specifications or your own quality standards to see if this is acceptable.

1.4 * 10% = 0.14 - 1.4 = 1.26%

The devil is in the details; she also wears prada.

Thank you for your feedback!

Do you know what reference standards were used?
Was this done in high precision mode?
Did you also check both of the base materials to see if you get results that match those MTRs?
Do you have heat lot traceability on the filler metal?

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P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

No point in carrying out PMI for carbon steel.

DHURJATI SEN
Kolkata, India

Unless the project also includes some high alloy (steels or SS) welds I agree with D Sen, no point.

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P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed