Numerical and Experimental Investigations on Welding Deformation

Prediction of welding distortion of different materials and welding joints in reasonable time is essential in the welding industry. In this paper, a three dimensional thermo-elastic-plastic finite element method (FEM) using an in-house finite element code of iterative substructure method (ISM) is developed to precisely predict welding distortion in bead on plate welding and fillet welding with SUS304 stainless steel and SS400 carbon steel. In addition, the corresponding experiments are carried out to validate the predicted results. Research results show the predicted results by ISM match the experimental results very well. In the condition of different welding heat inputs, the welding heat input plays an important role in welding distortion. Material properties of stainless steel and carbon steel play a larger role in welding distortion when welding heat input is the same. Further, for bead on plate welding of thin plate, both large distortion theory and small distortion theory are computed. The results show that using large distortion theory is more accurate in predicting welding distortion in thin plate welding.