In various applications, welding-induced residual stresses have a substantial impact on the integrity of welded constructions. Tensile residual stress can promote stress-corrosion cracking, brittle fracture, and reduces the fatigue life in service, as well as influences component design due to critical stress concentrations within the component.
In the present paper, a six bead multi-pass gas metal arc weld of 20 mm thick structural steel S355J2+N is experimentally and numerically investigated. The studies include transient 2D and 3D numerical calculations which consider temperature-dependent material properties, phase transformations, 'thermal' tempering, transformation plasticity, volume change due to phase transformation, an elasticplastic material model, and isotropic strain hardening. The experimentally determined and calculated residual stresses are in a good agreement. Furthermore, the influence of the preheat and interpass temperature on welding-induced residual stresses is shown in the present investigation.
The results of numerical welding simulations strongly depend on its temperature field. In the present paper, the temperature field of a pulsed gas metal arc weld of structural steel S355J2+N (ASTM A572 Gr. 50) with a thickness of 5 mm is experimentally and numerically investigated. In the case of temperature field validation, volumetric Gauss and double-ellipsoid Goldak heat sources are applied. Additionally, different heat source configurations, including adaptations of thermal conductivity, are analyzed regarding their influence on the calculation of welding-induced distortion.
The investigations clarify the influence of heat source configurations on the calculated results, thus, contribute to an improved prediction of welding-induced distortion.
Continuous cooling transformation (CCT) behavior affects the transient state of
material properties employed in a numerical welding simulation, having a direct influence
on the developing stress state. Three different CCT diagrams for S355J2 steel
were employed to understand the influence of variations in CCT behavior on the numerical
calculation of welding-induced residual stresses. The CCT diagrams were
constructed from transformation data contained in the Sysweld software database,
measured dilatometric data from Gleeble experiments, and transformation data calculated
from the JMatPro software. The calculated transverse and longitudinal residual
stress distributions provided a qualitative correction only in comparison to experimental
measurements, with the largest deviation occurring near the weld
interface. Overall, the results indicate a weak dependency of the calculated residual
stresses due to anticipated CCT variations. The most significant effect on the calculated
residual stresses was shown to be related to the proportion of formed martensite.
It is suggested that CCT data of approximate accuracy is sufficient for reliable
calculation of welding-induced residual stresses.