page_title: Arc welding
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Arc welding / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of N. N. Benardos Русский: Портрет Н. Н. Бенардоса
context_page_description: Arc welding is a welding process that is used to join metal to metal by using electricity to create enough heat to melt metal, and the melted metals when cool result in a binding of the metals. It is a type of welding that uses a welding power supply to create an electric arc between a metal stick and the base material to melt the metals at the point of contact. Arc welders can use either direct or alternating current, and consumable or non-consumable electrodes.
  The welding area is usually protected by some type of shielding gas, vapor, or slag. Arc welding processes may be manual, semi-automatic, or fully automated. First developed in the late part of the 19th century, arc welding became commercially important in shipbuilding during the Second World War. Today it remains an important process for the fabrication of steel structures and vehicles.
context_section_description: While examples of forge welding go back to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, arc welding did not come into practice until much later.
  In 1800 Humphry Davy discovered the short pulsed electric arcs. Independently a Russian physicist Vasily Petrov discovered the continuous electric arc in 1802 and subsequently proposed its possible practical applications, including welding. Arc welding was first developed when Nikolai Benardos presented arc welding of metals using a carbon electrode at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris in 1881, which was patented together with Stanisław Olszewski in 1887. In the same year, French electrical inventor Auguste de Méritens also invented a carbon arc welding method, patented in 1881, which was successfully used for welding lead in the manufacture of lead-acid batteries. The advances in arc welding continued with the invention of metal electrodes in the late 19th century by a Russian, Nikolai Slavyanov (1888), and an American, C. L. Coffin. Around 1900, A. P. Strohmenger released in Britain a coated metal electrode which gave a more stable arc. In 1905 Russian scientist Vladimir Mitkevich proposed the usage of three-phase electric arc for welding. In 1919, alternating current welding was invented by C.J. Holslag but did not become popular for another decade.
  Competing welding processes such as resistance welding and oxyfuel welding were developed during this time as well; but both, especially the latter, faced stiff competition from arc welding especially after metal coverings (known as flux) for the electrode, to stabilize the arc and shield the base material from impurities, continued to be developed.
  During World War I welding started to be used in shipbuilding in Great Britain in place of riveted steel plates. The Americans also became more accepting of the new technology when the process allowed them to repair their ships quickly after a German attack in the New York Harbor at the beginning of the war.  Arc welding was first applied to aircraft during the war as well, and some German airplane fuselages were constructed using this process. In 1919, the British shipbuilder Cammell Laird started construction of a merchant ship, the "Fullagar", with an entirely welded hull; she was launched in 1921.
  During the 1920s, major advances were made in welding technology, including the 1920 introduction of automatic welding in which electrode wire was continuously fed.  Shielding gas became a subject receiving much attention as scientists attempted to protect welds from the effects of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere.  Porosity and brittleness were the primary problems and the solutions that developed included the use of hydrogen, argon, and helium as welding atmospheres.  During the following decade, further advances allowed for the welding of reactive metals such as aluminum and magnesium.  This, in conjunction with developments in automatic welding, alternating current, and fluxes fed a major expansion of arc welding during the 1930s and then during World War II.
  During the middle of the century, many new welding methods were invented. Submerged arc welding was invented in 1930 and continues to be popular today. In 1932 a Russian, Konstantin Khrenov successfully implemented the first underwater electric arc welding. Gas tungsten arc welding, after decades of development, was finally perfected in 1941 and gas metal arc welding followed in 1948, allowing for fast welding of non-ferrous materials but requiring expensive shielding gases.  Using a consumable electrode and a carbon dioxide atmosphere as a shielding gas, it quickly became the most popular metal arc welding process.  In 1957, the flux-cored arc welding process debuted in which the self-shielded wire electrode could be used with automatic equipment, resulting in greatly increased welding speeds. In that same year, plasma arc welding was invented.  Electroslag welding was released in 1958 and was followed by its cousin, electrogas welding, in 1961.
caption: Nikolay Benardos
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