The control document for all welding activities is the design drawing of the component on which each individual weld is specified in terms of throat thickness (a) and required quality. The term a4 equals to throat thickness of 4 mm. For a load carrying weld, the throat thickness is an important geometry.
It is important to understand that a larger throat thickness increases the cross-sectional area of the weld and consequently, the amount of filler material. Increasing the throat thickness from a4 to a5 increases the amount of weld filler material by 56% theoretically. In reality it is even more. Thus, producing a weld with an increased throat thickness, be it intentional or unintentional, not only consumes more weld filler material, it also occupies more production time of valuable production resources.
With the Winteria system you can monitor the throat thickness (among other geometrical parameters) to ensure that it is kept within the tolerance limits. The system keeps track of the produced geometry and not only alerts the operator if the produced throat thickness is less than the tolerances, it also highlights excessive amount of weld filler and thus shows where there is a potential of cost savings.