Numerical Simulation of Transient Temperature in SMAW

Welding is the most commonly used and one of the most important material-joining processes widely used in industries. Low carbon steel plates with thickness 8 mm and above with 45° V and 60° V single pass and multipass weld geometry are widely used in fabrication of pressure vessels and other components. The residual stress developed due to welding is largely depends on the distribution of heat in weldment. In present work, experimental work has been carried out to find out the temperature distribution during welding of the above weld geometry with single pass and double pass welding on 8 mm thick plates. Non-linear transient thermal analysis has been also performed using commercially available finite element code ANSYS. ‘Tsai’ model is used for modeling heat input in ANSYS. Temperature curves obtained from analysis have been validated with experimental temperature data. The temperature distribution curves obtained from experiments and from numerical simulations are presented in the study. This temperature data can be used as an input for residual stress calculation in any Finite Element Analysis software like ANSYS, ABAQUS and SYSWELD etc. Also from this data, the better weld geometry can be selected for same amount of heat input and thickness.Copyright © 2009 by ASME