Liability - Welding

[Horace]

Hello all,

I'm trying to get welding permission in my school. The biggest problem for my ME department head is the issue of liability and what if someone gets hurt. How do teams come over that issue? If someone gets hurt on your team who is responsible for it. Or is there some type of waiver? My Dept. Head also told me that there are limitations to waivers in this country which could also be the problem and he's having another person to check on the issue.

There's a lot of politics in this project that I'm very new to and would love all the help/advice I can get.

Thanks from a first year team,

[markocosic]

If you're neither seen, nor heard, who is to say that you've been welding? (other than the welded structure, cleaned up room, and crates of beer for the workshop guys) http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Seriously though, take sensible precautions (check for smoke alarms, provide shielding over windows for passers by, do it in the small hours when there is nobody about, tidy the place before you start, tidy the place and stick around for 45 minutes after you've finished so as to ensure nothing does catch fire, have extinguishers and first aid kits nearby, an escape route, wear the appropriate kit etc) and it will be fine - even if something were to go wrong you have done everything by the book as far as legal obligations go. The university might have something to say, but they'll get over it in time.

As general advice, start small - doing odd bits of MIG work, hand fabrication etc then work up to the bigger/more expensive/more potentially dangerous work as you build the trust of the people who actually run the workshops and maintain the buildings. In future I'd avoid politics by assuming that everything is allowed until such a time as you are explicitly told otherwise - and making it an individuals responsibility for their own behaviour rather than a team issue.

You WILL get spatter in your gloves and down your socks, and you WILL put your hand on something that you've just welded - comes with the territory - but this is no more of an issue for you in SAE than a black eye in a ball game.

[Horace]

Yeah, I guess when it boils down to everyone saying no, then that's what I'll have to do. By the time they find out I'll have something built to show.

But they also explicitly told me no welding until we say yes -_-

Should I weld their mouths shut?

Oh and about the MIG, we only have a TIG in our garage, so it'll take some learning. We've already done some small fabrication work like using chop saw, hand grinder, drills, drill press stuff - the simple stuff.

[mtg]

At one point, as a sanity check for my welds, I welded a typical thin wall tube to a plate; then put the plate in the vice, obtained a "fine adjustment tool" and swung at the tube until something broke. It wasn't the weld.

That's basically the same idea of a test that's used to certify people to weld aircraft parts together. You could put together some sort of formal test/report in that fashion to put the university at ease.

[Steve Yao]

A few things.

1. No one should be welding without other personel around.
2. This other personel(or person) should be trained in CPR and fire extinguisher use.
3. Shielding must be provided for bystanders from the large amount of UV produced. Either curtains, or shades, or barriers, etc.
4. Flammables, acetone, oily rags etc. will be kept out of the welding area.

Basically, that you will obey OSHA regs regarding welding workspaces.

You need to show the dept. a well defined certification process and safety procedures for any eventuality. Your faculty advisor will have to be involved, or a shop supervisor. If you have no welders on the team, I would recommend sending a couple students to the local technical college for some welding classes this summer.

[consig]

my personal philosophy on school politics...

'its always easier to ask forgiveness than permission'

use at your own risk though

[markocosic]

Originally posted by Horace:
Oh and about the MIG, we only have a TIG in our garage, so it'll take some learning.

"Only" got a TIG - nice! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

TIG is easier to learn, easier to get good welds with - but slow to do and expensive. If you can solder electrical stuff, you can probably TIG too. Keep everything spotless (TIG is /really/ fussy on cleanliness, as you've not really got any fluxes), use the red tipped electrodes (thoriated?) with a nice sharp tip (helps focus the heat), and about 70A welding current (take things nice and slow) and that should do you for FSAE thickness tubes.

If Department has already said 'no' explicitly until they say yes, then give them a reasonable deadline and ask them to provide you with a set of conditions to satisfy before they say yes. If they're going to say yes, they'll provide the conditions. If they're not, you're not wasting your time asking any more...

Chop saws and hand grinders are /far/ more dangerous than welders by the way - pulling up some accident stats for backstreet fabrication shops griding/cutting versus welding and showing them to the school might help ease their fears.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

If they have a problem, have them come sit down while someone tig welds. Its so quiet and clean, I think they would realize its not going to start the place on fire like mig or stick where your throwing sparks and smoke everywhere.

I would not promote these "closet hidden welding area". You need proper ventalation or you will die.

[Kurt Bilinski]

It's strange they say no to welding. Why? Sparks? What about when a grinder's being used, shooting sparks all over? Hot metal? Same question. UV? Wear a mask.

I agree, get "them" to come watch when you TIG weld - that is, if you get caught. I'd just go ahead and do it.

[Marshall Grice]

At our school, we all enroll in a "lab" class that way everyone is covered under the school/state insurance. Your school does have lab classes right? Or is that too much of a liability also?

[Horace]

Marshall,

Is that true in every state, or more specifically, NY?

[Marshall Grice]

I don't know about other states. That's just how we do it here. (past tense for me)

[Drew Price]

We go through a 2 hour shop 'training/introduction' as freshmen (in Illinois), since the required freshman design sequence produces functional prototypes in the ME shop. After the two hour session we sign waiver and contact sheet that goes into the shop supervisor's binder of 'people-allowed-to-be-in-my-shop', and we are (supposedly) covered by insurance. I believe that this is more for the school's risk management department, rather than anything the state has to do with it, but I could be wrong.

We had to fight lots of bureaucracy this year as well for fabrication and storage rights, do you have a shop supervisor who will vouch for the welding process, and/or your abilities? Our shop guys really like us because we are not careless-hot-knife-wielding-freshmen who have invaded their shop, but dilligent workers who learn the proper and safe way to make things. If you can get a shop tech on your side to sign off that he has witnessed you doing things correctly and safely, you will be much better off.

Or convice the admins that you are a team who will just have to make everything from CF, due to lack of welding facilities http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Best,
Drew

[Greg 08]

I am not sure if I am misinterpreting this thread, but is the question about how safe or dangerous it is to do the actual welding? If that is the case, I would probably just do it, the forgiveness permission thing. Just don't piss of the shop supervisor, but the admin building? They will be so fired up once they see it, they will get past that. Just don't do something stupid and put facebook pictures of you doing something against the rules, they will find out about things like that.

The other was I took this was the 'if I crash and welds fail' (not in that particular order) is this car safe. That is much harder to solve, and either learn how to weld and do your own pseudo aircraft certification, or get legitimately certified.

Good luck
Greg

[Jersey Tom]

Up until last year, at CU you'd just go over to the welder, turn it on, have someone show you what to do, and away you went. No permissions, no waivers, nothin.

Then they set up a separate card-access welding "shop" this year. You sign some little piece of paper saying you're not gonna be in there while drunk or on drugs or whatever, that you'll be safe, blah blah.. and then access granted and away you go.

[vreihen]

Originally posted by Horace:

I'm trying to get welding permission in my school. The biggest problem for my ME department head is the issue of liability and what if someone gets hurt. How do teams come over that issue?

I'd simply point out that the New York State Education Department used to *require* 10 weeks of metal shop (including welding) as part of the junior high school curriculum. Maybe the requirement was changed to permit computer classes or something else as a substitute recently, but back in the stone ages when I was in 7th grade they made me take the class.

I take it that you're trying to build your car in Manhattan, and Poly doesn't have a maintenance workshop or garage floor space to offer like other schools do? I think that the Columbia University team was in the same pickle a few years ago, and they managed to build an FSAE car even though they allegedly didn't even have a place to start the engine until they brought it out for their first autox testing event!

If the problem is a suitable work space and tools issue, perhaps you can do the design and materials cutting and then "sub-contract" the welding either to a professional shop or maybe a local high school vo-tech program. Personally, I'd go the vo-tech route, because the college that I work for had a great deal of success subbing out a solar race car to the local high school shop class when we didn't have the facilities to fabricate large pieces on our campus. As a plus, you might wind up recruiting some high school students to attend your college and join your FSAE team.

Oh, and as your friendly local SCCA Solo event official, let me throw in a reminder to make sure all of your bolts are tight before tech http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif and say that I'm looking forward to seeing Poly's car out at some of our local events next spring for testing. Please let me know if you need any help arranging for driver training (now) or a test & tune session (next spring), because I can help out your team in that regard.....

[consig]

Hi Horace, I didnt realize at first that you're from Poly in Brooklyn. We were a first year team in 2007 and being in Manhattan we had to deal with alot of the same stuff as you. I think the biggest help was to find someone on staff such as a lab advisor who is excited about the project. Having some one on our side made things alot easier when dealing with the safety officer and that kind of thing.
In the end we set up a room just for us where we could weld. We cleared everything out of it, installed ventilation and did a few other things to satisfy the safety officer. Then we brought the safety officer in and held a short demonstration to show that we had met all of his requirements. TIG welding is very clean and safe looking so a demonstration to someone in charge is probably a good thing to try.

Please let us know if there is anything we can help you with this year, we are right over the river in the east village and I'm very happy to hear of another FSAE team in the metro area. Possibly when the end of the year comes around we can do some testing together. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

consig@cooper.edu

[Horace]

Thank you very much for the replies. I managed to get permission for the welder from another student who is in charge of the welder. Just need to get some welding supplies now and then finally we can get started.

Vreihen - thanks for your offer for driver training, test & tune. I will most likely contact you when we finish the car! I'm guessing you're located in the Tri-State area?

Consig - I just read your signature - awesome! I'm pretty sure I'll need some advice from you since I'm dealing a lot of the same issues you had to deal with last school year. Actually, can I ask where you got your welding supplies from and if they give discounts/sponsorship? Or did you get it from your school?

The supplies we're looking for are filler rods for 4130, welding mask, TIG welding gloves, Tungste, Tungsten holders, and Ceramic Cups of different sizes. And also 2-3 tanks of argon.

I'm very new to welding, and that's all that our team could think of that we need.

[consig]

wow, its very nice to see some formula action in new york city, lets hope we can keep it up.

Horace- We got almost all of our welding supplies from McKinney Welding Supply (mckinneynyc.com). They are on west 52nd street between 10th&11th ave. They treated us very well and were enthusiastic about helping us. They even donated some things and are listed as sponsors on our website (coopermotorsports.org)
As far as I know they have everything that you need (including gloves, masks and gas). They will be more than happy to answer any questions you have, they will probably recommend the ER70S-2 or ER80S-D2 filler rod.
Also if you are new to welding and don't have anywhere convenient to go for help you can start by reading the tutorials on the Miller website and by downloading their TIG welding manual (free Multi chapter TIG welding book, printed sells for $25) Best of luck.

vreihen- the cooper union team is very interested in any kind of driver's training events that we can get ourselves into. We are keeping our 2007 car together for testing and training purposes and want to get as much seat time as possible. Please let us know what kind of events you would recommend. As we don't really have access to any parking lots or stuff like that we were planning to rely mostly on autocrosses with SCCA, PCA, and MotorsportsNE club. Also if any of the Poly guys are interested our team would be happy to have them come along.

[vreihen]

Originally posted by consig:

vreihen- the cooper union team is very interested in any kind of driver's training events that we can get ourselves into. We are keeping our 2007 car together for testing and training purposes and want to get as much seat time as possible.

I sent you a private message with my e-mail address, and sent an e-mail to the Poly address in Horace's profile.

There's no reason why we can't put together an unofficial FSAE competition for NYC/Metro area teams just like they did out in the midwest! I've chaired enough autocross events in my life, and can easily make something like this happen if there's an interest. As for driver training, there's a 3-day autocross school tentatively on NYR's schedule for mid-August, which may wind up being turned into a test & tune or something on the Friday of that weekend. (If the school runs, everyone will need a fendered car with a passenger's seat for the day.)

As your local SCCA ambassador (and the owner of an A-Mod car), http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif let me know what you need and I'll do my best to make it happen.....

[consig]

Thanks vreihen, I think it would be incredible if we could set up an Autocross weekend for the northeast FSAE teams. It seems a shame to me that so many of these cars are built and only raced against each other once or twice. It would also be nice to form more of an east coast FSAE community especially with the prospect of FSAE-East at VIR next year. Maybe we can start with a new thread here to gauge interest, to see which schools we could count on being there.

[vreihen]

It seems a shame to me that so many of these cars are built and only raced against each other once or twice.

My thinking was more along the lines of a huge test & tune weekend for all y'all, a few weeks before the big FSAE event. Hearing things like Columbia University supposedly not even being able to run their engine on campus, along with watching RPI and other FSAE teams coming out to our local Solo events to scrounge up a few minutes of testing/seat time leads me to believe that there's a serious need of an event where everyone can put *hours* on their cars instead of minutes like you'd get at a normal Solo competition event.

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a really nice parking lot complex at a NYC-area academic institution (who AFAIK doesn't have an FSAE team), that has the potential to accommodate *three* independent autocross-type courses at the same time! If there's enough interest, I can contact the administration at this institution and try to pitch them letting us use their parking lots next spring for a two-day FSAE test & tune. Cost-wise, it would be be in the autocross price range (to cover the per-driver event insurance fees), and teams would be expected to participate in the cone-shagging duties just like any other autocross event.

If someone wants to start a new thread to gauge the interest in this happening, feel free to do so. Assuming sufficient interest, I'll pitch the idea to the institution with the parking lots in the fall and see if we can't make something happen for next spring.....

[Horace]

Actually Arthur, do you know if the Floyd Bennett Field could work out for testing?

[Kakarot]

Floyd Bennett Filed would be a better area to test, as we could get a nice flat area next to the sea. If enough cars sign up, about 3, then we will have a greater chance on getting the right spot without speed restraint.

Other is parking lots at the malls and one I know of home depot at coney island.

We will see about stuff like that when we be closer to competition.