Welding Process Designations

FCAW-S stands for Self-Shielded Flux Cored Arc Welding per AWS A2.4:2020 Table A2. The FCAW base designation means Flux Cored Arc Welding. The -S suffix indicates the self-shielded variant, which uses a tubular electrode with flux compounds that generate their own shielding gas when heated. No external shielding gas cylinder is required. The alternative is FCAW-G (Gas Shielded Flux Cored Arc Welding), which uses an external shielding gas in addition to the flux core. FCAW-S electrodes are classified under AWS A5.20 (e.g., E71T-8, E71T-11) and are popular for outdoor structural work because wind does not disrupt the self-generated shielding.

Process designations appear in the tail of the welding symbol per AWS A2.4:2020 section 6.12.1. The tail is the V-shaped element at the end of the reference line opposite the arrow. When the tail is present, it may contain the process designation (such as SMAW, GMAW, or FCAW-G), a specification reference, a WPS number, or other information needed to make the weld. Per section 6.12.5, the tail may be omitted when no process or specification reference is needed. Application mode suffixes from Table A5 may be appended to the process code, such as GTAW-MA for manual gas tungsten arc welding.

GMAW-S and GMAW-P are both variants of Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) per AWS A2.4:2020 Table A2. GMAW-S is Short Circuiting transfer mode, where the wire electrode physically touches the weld pool to transfer metal. It operates at lower heat input and is used on thin materials and root passes. D1.1:2025 Clause 5.3.2.2 specifically excludes GMAW-S from prequalification due to higher risk of incomplete fusion. GMAW-P is Pulsed transfer mode, which alternates between high peak current and low background current to achieve spray-like transfer at lower average heat input. GMAW-P is prequalified under D1.1 when other Clause 5 conditions are met.

Table A5 of AWS A2.4:2020 defines six application mode suffixes that can be appended to any process designation to indicate how the process is applied. The suffixes are: -AD for adaptive control, -AU for automatic, -MA for manual, -ME for mechanized, -RO for robotic, and -SA for semiautomatic. The format is XXXX-YY where XXXX is the process code and YY is the mode suffix. For example, GTAW-MA means manual gas tungsten arc welding, and SAW-AU means automatic submerged arc welding. These suffixes are separate from process variant suffixes like -S, -G, or -P which indicate transfer modes or shielding methods.