Validation of numerical simulations with X-ray diffraction measurements of residual stress in butt-welded steel plates

ABSTRACT

The present work investigates experimentally and numerically the residual stress induced in the surface of thin steel plates subjected to single pass butt welding. First, the temperature history is calculated considering the temperature-dependent material properties in thermal analysis and some selected points are verified by measured temperature history recorded by thermocouple and data logger. Then the mechanical analysis of indirect thermo-mechanical analysis in numerical run is applied to calculate the induced residual stress of welding. The numerical results are validated with the experimental measurements. The experimental data, collected in the fusion zone, heat affected zone and at the edges of the transverse edges of the plate are measured by the technique of X-ray diffraction. In addition, the effect of the boundary conditions, element size and the width of the plate are also investigated and discussed and conclusions are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Residual stress
• X-ray diffraction
• finite element analysis
• butt welding
• element size sensitivity

Acknowledgments

The first author has been funded by a PhD scholarship from ABS, the American Bureau of Shipping. The second author has been supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal) under the contract SFRH/BD/97682/2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

American Bureau of Shipping; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal) [grant number SFRH/BD/97682/2013].