This specification provides the requirements for qualification of welding procedure specifications, welders, and welding operators for manual, semiautomatic, mechanized, and automatic welding. The welding processes included are oxyfuel gas welding, shielded metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, submerged arc welding, gas metal arc welding, flux cored arc welding, plasma arc welding, electroslag welding, electrogas welding, electron beam welding, laser beam welding, and stud arc welding. Base metals, filler metals, qualification variables, welding designs, and testing requirements are also included. Safety and health issues and concerns are beyond the scope of this standard and therefore are not fully addressed herein.