Ship Engineering

In this paper, it is verified that the consumption of steel for welded structures in China in 2004 has exceeded 100 million tons, which makes China the world number one welding manufacture country. Since the beginning of the reforming and opening policy in China, many important and large welded structures have been made and welding has played an indispensable role in the development of national economy. The production and application of welding consumables, the distribution of welding robots, the education and training of welding professional are analyzed. Although the yield of welding consumables and welding wires have been expanded rapidly and China has become the largest welding consumables production and consumption country, the rate of manual welding electrodes is still beyond 75%, the welding mechanization and automation rate is around 35% and the ratio between the annual yield of welding consumables and steel is up to 0.77%. These problems should be solved in a shorter time. According to the development trend of welding technology, the applications of welding robot system, fully digital welding power sources, laser and laser hybrid welding, friction stir welding as well as high efficient welding processes should be emphasized in China’s shipbuilding industry. Our international competition strength should be improved by attracting excellent welding professional to the production front and improving the cooperation between governments, enterprises, universities and research institutes as well as with our predominance of high quality, high efficiency and low production costs.