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The report discusses the feasibility of applying acoustic emission to real-time monitoring of gas metal arc welding. A state-of-the-art survey indicated that investigators had some success with detecting cracks, porosity, and slag inclusion during the welding of steels by monitoring acoustic emission. The presence of cracks was most easily detected in gas tungsten arc welding of stainless steels. Slag inclusions associated with roped bead in submerged arc welding can also be detected by acoustic emission. In the present work, cracks were introduced in a restrained weldment by hydrogen additions to the shielding gas. Selective filtering was used to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Results show that the acoustic emission rate from cracks is much higher than that from the welding arc noise. A real-time weld monitor for detection of cracks in steel is therefore technically feasible. However, when porosity was introduced, the acoustic emission rate was about the same order as that from the welding arc noise. Thus, porosity could not be detected by the acoustic emission in a real-time weld monitoring situation.