International Association "Welding"

The International Association "Welding" (IAW) was founded in May, 1991 at the facility of the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute of NAS of Ukraine and became a successor of the Coordination Center on the problem "Welding" at the former CMEA. The activity of the association is based on the new principles of market mutual relations. The aim of its activity is to create favourable conditions for its members in study of their scientific-technical potential, to render practical assistance in promoting the competitive developments at the markets.

The association incorporates different research institutions, industrial enterprises, entities of business and financial activity of a number of countries. As a legal body it is functioning by the Agreement of the interested parties, on the basis of Status, and registered in Ukraine in accordance with existing laws.

The scientific-technical cooperation in the field of welding, one of the most widely spread processes of metal treatment, is a powerful key factor in the development and intensification of production. The direct scientific, industrial and trade relations between organizations and companies, included to IAW, create favourable conditions for the effective scientific-technical and economical development of each member of the association. This is due, in particular, to providing the express information about all the achievements in the field of welding science and technology, information about demands and offers at the welding market.

The main trends in the IAW activity arc as follows: scientific-technical, production-business, financial-economical, information-advertizing, foreign economical, etc. This very wide range of trends of activity makes it possible, depending on the situation, to select the most effective trend and to concentrate efforts on it for obtaining the desired result. The analysis of the economical situation and feasibility of selecting the most rational trend allows realization of the main aim of cooperation and quick solution of the arising problems.

During recent three-four years the IAW is active in three main trends, such as information-advertizing, scientific-technical and financial-economical. Over the recent years about 30 international conferences and seminars in different countries, namely in Bulgaria, Germany, Poland, Georgia, Macedonia, Russia, Ukraine, were held by the IAW. The subjects of the conferences were rather diverse. These are the problems of quality and certification of products, hygienic conditions of application of welding processes, new technologies of welding, problems of welding application in shipbuilding, construction of tanks, railways and rolling stocks, metallurgy and related technologies. Scientists from Belarus, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Germany, France, Romania, Japan, USA, Korea, China, Ukraine participated in the conferences. Among the conducted conferences such large conferences can be outlined as "Welding and Related Technologies to the XXI Century" (November 1998, Kiev) and "Welded Structures" (October 2000, Kiev), International Conference "Mathematical Modelling and Information Technologies in Welding and Related Processes" (September 2002, Katsiveli, Crimea, Ukraine), International Conference "Laser Technologies in Welding and Materials Processing" (May 2003, Katsiveli, Crimea, Ukraine), International Conference "Current Problems in Welding and Life of Structures" (November 2003, Kiev), Second International Conference "Mathematical Modelling and Information Technologies in Welding and Related Processes" (September 2004, Katsiveli, Crimea, Ukraine).

The information activity is not limited by organizing the conferences and seminars. The IAW issues the express-informations, each devoting to a definite problem, for example, computer systems in welding production, problems of quality and economical manufacturing of welded structures and so on. Each issue consists of four chapters including the abstracts of subject papers presented at the conferences; description of new developments offered by organizations-IAW members, and also their demands in new developments; information about the scheduled international conferences; list of organizations-IAW members. Express informations are distributed among the IAW members free of charge.

In 2001 the IAW together with the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute became co-founders of the journals "Avtomaticheskaya Svarka", "Problemy Spetsialnoy Elektrometallurgii", "Tekhnicheskaya Diagnostika i Nerazrushayushchiy Kontrol", "The Paton Welding Journals", "Advances in Electrometallurgy"..
In the scope of the scientific-technical trend, the IAW, using its status possibilities as an object of a foreign activity and results of information-advertizing work, is active in searching for investors to realize the R&D projects by signing the contracts for the fulfilment of research and experimental-designing works. Over this period a number of works was fulfilled in cooperation with such organizations and companies as Instytut Spawalnictwa (Gliwice, Poland), "Linge-KCA-Drezden", "Binzel Industries GmbH" (Germany), "Airbus Industries" (France), "Consortium Service Management Group, Inc.", "Performance Alloys Materials, Inc." (USA), "Farrik van Plaatwerken van Dam" (the Netherlands), Korea Institute of Machines and Materials, the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute (Ukraine), Gas Institute of NAS of Ukraine, Institute of Surgery and Transplantology of AMS of Ukraine, NPO "More", Kharkov Aviation Institute.
Owing to international mutual relations, a very wide scope of developments was fulfilled, among which are the EBW of large-sized thin-walled aluminium alloy structures, explosion stress relieving in welded samples of high-pressure vessels, inner cladding of steel cylindrical billets using explosion welding, welding of soft vital tissues and other projects. Only some of the developments made by the PWI in collaboration with IAW, are illustrated.

Each year the IAW accumulates the experience in attraction of financial resources and searches for partners to realize the projects using both the new challenging developments and implementation of ready developments. At a definite interest of organizations there are all necessary conditions for cooperation within the scope of the joint projects.

To make the financial-economical activity more active the IAW established a local charity funds Cooperation of Welders" intended for rendering assistance in realization of scientific-educational programs and financing the definite purposeful programs. This made it possible to attract attention of legal and physical persons of Ukraine to cooperation for mobilization of financial, material-technical and other resources, to widen the sources of incomings. Due to funds of sponsors two International conferences were held.

It is seen that the trends of IAW activity are interconnected in such a way that information and advertizing contribute to the creation of projects, and the funds, obtained from their realization, can promote to a certain extend the development of information-advertising activity.Summarizing activity of IAW, it can be concluded that the activity of the association was successful and useful in spite of natural difficulties accompanying this transition period. It made it possible to preserve the many-year earlier established creative relations of scientists and specialists working in the field of welding science and technology.

The active work of co-founders within the scopes of IAW, i.e. Institute of Welding (Gliwice, Poland), Industrial Group OSC "Rotex-K" (Moscow), Georgian Welding Association (Tbilisi), KZU Holding, Ltd. (Sofia), Institute of Welding and Protective Coatings (Minsk), Otto-von-Guericke Univcrsitat (Magdeburg, Germany), "Consortium Service Management Group, Inc." (Corpus Christi, USA) should be outlined. The activity of IAW gives opportunity to find new partners, to establish the multilateral and bilateral business contacts, to realize the fast exchange of information about the newest achievements in science and technology, and also in the solution of arising problems, to participate jointly in the developments of scientific and technical projects, financed by special funds, to search for orders and their fulfilment by the joint efforts, to accumulate and further develop the unique experience of multilateral cooperation of partners on the mutually beneficial conditions.