Manuscript Tracking ID: MT25-Tue-Af-Po2.

09-10 1

Strategy for the simulation of the ITER Toroidal

Field Coil Case welding distortion with Finite
Element Method
M. Jimenez, B. Bellesia, J. Cornellà, P. Aprili, E. Barbero, R.Batista, A. Bonito Oliva, E. Boter, P. Casas, M. Corne-
lis, M. Damone, C. Kostopoulos, K. Libens, S. Heikkinen, R. Harrison, A. Hernandez, A. LoBue, N. Pellicer, L.
Poncet, G. Veredas, E. Viladiu, Fusion for Energy; O. Malpica, Instituto De Soldadura E Qualidade, S.a; P. Barbero,
M. Bolla, R. Francone, SIMIC S.p.A;M. Spagnolo, G. Falcitelli, Enginsoft S.p.A

Abstract— The first European superconducting Winding Pack I. INTRODUCTION

(WP) and the first set of Coil Cases (TFCC) for ITER are going
to be delivered in 2017. The TFCC are steel structures which
provide structural integrity to the WP, contribute to neutron
shielding capacity, provide support to operating forces and offer
interface connections with the rest of ITER machine.
The TFCC assembly is formed by four main parts, two sectors
with U-shaped section and two closure plates, which, after being
welded together, enclose the WP. Each TFCC weights about 150 t
and presents a wall thickness from 60 to 120 mm. The presence of
distortions when welding such thick structures is particularly
problematic in these components, which require tight tolerances
and include several interfaces with other parts of the machine. In
order to compensate the distortions, extra-material is present in
the critical areas to allow post-welding machining. The amount
of extra-material has to be optimized to reduce machining time
and therefore the cost of the manufacturing. Thus, the evaluation
of the welding-caused-distortions is essential in order to confirm
the extra-material strategy.
In this scenario, an experimental and simulation campaign has
been set up to predict the deformation of the TFCC during weld-
ing. First, welding coupons were welded in representative config-
urations. Then, this data was used to build a preliminary FEM
model tool, using ANSYS® software, which was then bench-
marked against a ‘blind test’ coupon and three TFCC-like mock-
ups of 1 m long. Finally, a full FEM model was constructed using
the previous outputs and is currently under assessment to predict
the deformation of the TFCC during the welding process.
This paper presents the numerical and experimental activities
carried out so far, being EnginSoft S.p.A the developer of FEM
models, SIMIC S.p.A the responsible of welding processes and
data acquisition, and Fusion for Energy the contractual and
technical supervisor.
TER project is an international scientific endeavor with
I the objective of building a fusion reactor. In order to sustain
the fusion reactions, ITER needs a system of super-conducting
magnets [1] which consist mainly of Central Solenoid (CS),
Poloidal Field Coil (PFC) and Toroidal Field Coil (TFC) sub-
systems. The TFC system is an assembly of 18 superconduct-
ing D-shape coils. Each coil consists of a superconducting
winding pack (WP) and an external stainless steel armor and
supporting structure; the so called TFC Case (TFCC). The
TFCCs are SS316LN structures which, besides their structural
role also provide numerous integral structural attachments to
other components of the magnet system and the ITER ma-
chine. The TFCC is formed by two sub-assemblies, A and B,
with a U-section, AU and BU, and a closure plate, AP and BP,
The resulting main TFCC sub-assemblies, BU-BP and AU-
AP, and their front and lateral view are shown in figure 1, to-
gether with TFC main dimensions. Each part of the TFCC is
welded during the WP insertion operation. Generally speak-
ing, the welding sequence is based in welding first AU-BU
cases with a butt weld, casing the WP, and followed with the
welding of the AP and BP plates. Welding thicknesses range
from 30 to 120 mm. Automatic GTAW method has been cho-
sen to minimize welding deformation for all except the butt-
welds, for which a manual method is used, see chamfers in
figure 2.

Index Terms— ITER, Magnets, stainless steel welding, FEM

simulation.

The work leading to this publication has been funded by Fusion for Energy
under the contract F4E-OPE-414. This publication reflects the views only of
the author, and Fusion for Energy cannot be held responsible for any use
which may be made of the information contained therein.
The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of
the ITER Organization.
M. Jimenez is with Fusion For energy, Barcelona, Spain, Europe
(email:marc.jimenez@f4e.europa.eu)
Fig. 1. TFC overall dimensions in mm and TFCC main sub-assemblies

Template version 8.0, 27 July 2017. IEEE will put copyright information in this area
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Welding operation is delicate, since the WP should be pro-
tected from the generated heat, and the displacement of the
cases due to the welding distortions should be as limited as
possible. As example, 0.5 mm in planarity tolerance has to be
respected in the ~10 m of straight section of the AU case. Pre-
vious studies [2] showed that welding thick SS structures cre-
ate non-negligible distortions which could cause difficulties to
meet dimensional tolerances. As mentioned previously, the
TFCs are components with numerous interfaces, so defor-
mation and out-of-tolerance interfacing areas are to be avoided
to ensure that each TFC can be assembled properly. In this re-
gard, extra-material or over-metal is present in the interfacing
area, which should be machined once the welding is finished.
Since this is a costly and time consuming operation the
amount of extra-material has to be minimized. This complex
scenario leads to the need of a strategy to assess welding dis-
tortions in an efficient and accurate manner. In order to face
this, a campaign consisting in real welding of TFCC-like
structures was launched in order to feed experimental data to
create a suitable FEM tool. Typically, welding simulation re-
quires coupled thermo-mechanical transient models to be
solved, which require a large amount of time for industry re-
lated complicated geometries. For this reason, several simpli-
fication techniques are typically used, such as mesh condensa-
tion techniques [2], or imposed inherent strain [3].
This paper presents the strategy followed by EnginSoft, F4E
and SIMIC for the development of the FEM tool, starting with
an overview of the methodology, results assessment, conclu-
sion and further work.
Fig. 2. Weld chamfers for manual (right) and automatic (left) welding.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Global Approach
The strategy adopted for the execution of the activity was
based in three main aspects. The first aspect was the prepara-
tion and execution of a set of experimental welding exercises.
These welded structures had to be representative of the final
TFCC geometry but, at the same time, simple at the beginning,
increasing their complexity in further steps in order to be used
as an experimental feeding system to the FEM tool to be de-
veloped. The initial welding exercises were the welding cou-
pons used for welding qualification [4]. They were used to es-
tablish the main aspects of the FEM tool, with one of the cou-
pons being used as a blind test. Then, the welding structures
2
complexity was increased to scale 1:1 sections of the real
TFCC but limited to 1m in length. In this way, the interaction
of the different welding passes and different geometries were
tested and adapted to the FEM tool. With this, the FEM tool
was ready to be used in the full TFCC geometry in order to
predict deformations of the real case. A scheme of this meth-
odology is presented in Figure 3.
The second aspect of the strategy was to simplify the nu-
meric problem to be solved as much as possible, in order to
obtain reasonable computing time, while not compromising
too much the accuracy level.
Fig. 3. Global methodology flowchart. Experimental activities on welding
coupons and mockups are used to define and fine tune the FEM tool to be
used with the full TFCC geometry.
For this, three main decisions were made: First, the applica-
tion of equivalent space-time temperature maps to mechanical
models, thus de-coupling the thermal-transient problem, using
a quasi-steady state analytical solution for a moving heat
source following Rosenthal [5] and others posterior studies
[6], [7], for thick plates. Second, a mesh reduction via cluster-
ing weld passes, as per [2]: this idea consists in the condensa-
tion of several passes within a weld, maintaining as much as
possible the real sequence in the deposit of the passes. For
this, the history of displacements predicted should be matched
with the experimental data. Third, to use techniques developed
for laser cut simulation in a reverse way, using ANSYS ®
technology of element ‘birth’ and ‘death’ studies [8]. The pro-
cedures have been developed by applying thermal power den-
sity on each element under the action of the electrical arc as
body force, while the heat transfer is a function of the arc dis-
placement along the welding. For each pass, a layer of ele-
ments is set active row by row as the arc moves along it. Heat
is conducted through the bottom and side nodal surfaces of the
forming chord, while it is radiated through the top one through
the use of surface radiation elements which are kept “alive”
until the following pass occurs and then killed. Until the next
row of elements is activated, the front nodal surface is kept ad-
iabatic. All these numeric techniques were used to feed the
FEM tool via a series of tuning parameters: cut-off tempera-
ture, i.e. temperature at which an element is activated, chord
mesh size and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of
chord material.

The third aspect of the strategy was the need of obtaining reli-
able experimental results, and how to treat and process them in
order to be used to feed the FEM tool. Usually, this kind of
simplified FEM weld simulation and tuning exercises are exe-
cuted at laboratory scale. Indeed, for coupon outputs, it was
simple to instrument and obtain displacement and temperature
data. On the other hand, scale 1:1 mockups were big, massive
structures composed of very thick, up to 120mm, steel plates,
which should be welded and handled in an industrial work-
shop environment. For this, an extensive metrology work was
necessary in order to obtain reliable data depicting the defor-
mation of the structures for each welding step, in order to use
this data to feed the FEM tool.
More details of each phase of the activity are given in the fol-
lowing sections.
B. Welding qualification coupons
A total of six qualification coupons were welded, repre-
sentative of the characteristic welds to be executed on the real
TFCC. Most coupons (5 out of 6) were manually GTAW
welded, while 1 coupon was executed to qualify the automatic
welding of the TFCC. Coupons’ thicknesses were 60mm and
65 mm, lengths 850mm to 900mm and width 300mm and 500
mm. Vertical and horizontal displacements and temperature
measured by thermo-couples in the coupons were used to feed
the simulation and calibration activities. One of the coupons
was used as blind test, i.e. was welded after the simulation re-
sults were obtained, in order to avoid any bias when compar-
ing the obtained and expected results. Figure 4 shows the out-
come of the blind test, where the experimental vertical dis-
placement of the free plate was compared to the simulation re-
sults and a prior estimation of considering the displacement as
a cubic function in time As a consequence, the CTE and mesh
sizing of the chord material were defined, and also all the load
inputs and cooling laws scripts which would define the FEM
tool to be used in the upcoming mockup simulations.
Fig. 4 Plots of coupon vertical displacement during welding process, used for
blind test and after final tuning of the FEM tool.
3
C. Activities on true TFCC section mockups
As next step, three full scale 1 m long mockups were weld-
ed and simulated, in order to validate and fine tune, if neces-
sary, the calibration parameters of the FEM model, choosing
the CTE of the chord material as main calibration parameter,
as a first choice. The mockups were named, respectively,
mockup A (MU-A), representing an equatorial section of the
AU TFCC part, mockup C (MU-C) representing an equatorial
section of BU TFCC part and mockup D (MU-D), representa-
tive of the AU-BU upper connection zone.
The welding of the three mockups required several months,
during which position of the control points was monitored ap-
proximately every 25mm of deposited welded material. Re-
garding FE modeling, the FEM procedure developed on cou-
pons allowed to successfully carry out the all the welding sim-
ulations. The condensation of the passes allowed keeping the
computational time reasonably low, even for MU-D, with the
highest number of welding chords, whose solution time took
less than 1 week.
Fig. 5. Drawing of MU-D with control points and butt weld – red arrows -
representation. Distance variation caused by the welding process of the close
points along the weld, such as the circled pair, is represented the figure 6.
MU-D presented another difficulty as well; the custom ma-
chining of the splice plate, a piece which will ‘close’ the
mockup once the AU-BU and AP-BP parts are welded. This
custom machining was required to be replicated in the FEM
model, which required a challenging adaptation of the well-
known ANSYS® sub-modeling technique – imposed dis-
placement at a cut boundary- so that the splice plate would fit
into the already deformed structure due to the welding distor-
tion caused by the precedent welding passes. In addition, a
procedure for the numerical-experimental comparison was
successfully created; such technique is based on the compari-
son of variations of distance between control points, located
both in the real part, obtained after metrology surveys with
Laser tracker, and also in the FEM models, assessing thus the
distortion of the structure caused by the welding. The mockup
study and the analysis activity, by comparing the deformation
results predicted with the measured ones, indicated the need of
increasing the CTE value, as calibration parameter, for the au-
tomatic welding of MU-A and MU-C +34%, to take into ac-
 4

count the different filler welding material, with respect to the

manual welding of MU-D. More discussion about the compar-
ison between experimental and model results are given in sec-
tion III.A

D. Full TFCC model

The full TFCC model includes all the welding steps of the
welding sequence, tack weld, butt welding, poloidal welding
and splice plates. The FEM model used all the previous pa-
rameters defined with the coupons and mockups experimental
and simulation activities i.e.: cut-off temperatures, chord mesh
size and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of chord ma- Fig 6. Plots of difference in distance between control points of MU-D,
terial. The boundary conditions of the TFCC structure were FEM predicted and experimentally measured.
defined with care, since they were defined considering the real For both MU-D and MU-C, an uncontrolled movement of
supports which are able to follow the movements imposed by the AP/BP plates during the experimental welding was dis-
welding shrinkage. After several trials, it was decided to rep- covered, probably caused by manual welding of the position-
resent them by low-stiffness,100 N/mm, which produced small ing brackets between the plates and the case walls. This led to
reaction forces, less than 280 N, along Y axis. The welding an important lesson learnt: FEM models use nominal geome-
sequence, starting from a first-hypothetic sequence was modi- try and ‘ideal’ welding, so any small deviation or non-
fied and the related simulations gave evidences that global conformance in the manufacturing of the pieces or in the
shrinkage of the structure is not strongly affected. First results welding process is obviously not included a priori, and may
of TFCC model simulations are obtained and the post- affect the results or the comparison between experimental and
processing and treatment of the control points displacement FEM model. For this, part traceability and manufacturing shall
and interface control is currently ongoing. Moreover, in order be very well recorded and monitored.
to investigate the option of reducing even further the size of
the models in view of the construction of the full TFCC geom- B. TFCC Preliminary results
etry, the use of shell elements to represent mockup walls far Considering preliminary results from the simulation, it can
from the weld chord and Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) zone was be seen that the main contributor for the global welding de-
studied. MU-A and MU-D resulted from 10% to 36% more formation was the AU-BU butt welding phase. Butt welding
flexible in terms of U-wall closure when modeled by shell el- seems to cause AU and BU TFCC to approach each other
ements, which together with the fact that U-wall closure was along the horizontal plane, while the effect is more limited
expected to be less than 1 mm in the TFCC model, led to along vertical and plane transverse direction. The section of
adopt the conservative approach of using shell elements in the the TFCC remains quite un-deformed, and the model predicted
plate-like areas of the full TFCC geometry. local deformation coherent with the welding chord. Full study
of TFCC deformation is currently under development, but in
figure 7 there is a representation of the deformation field after
III. RESULTS DISCUSSION the welding process on the complete geometry, normalized to
A. Mock-up comparison EXP vs NUM a 10mm maximum scale.
The simulation of the mockups welding showed that the
FEM tool developed qualitatively predicted the global distor-
tion of the structures. For MU-A, walls closure and AP plate
bending were the main global distortion observed and also
predicted, and similarly for MU-C. For MU-D, more diverse
distortions were present due to the different welding steps;
AU-BU butt weld, A/BP plates and splice plate (TSP), but the
qualitative deformation was also captured by the FEM tool.
An example of all this is shown in figure 6, where the defor-
mation of MU-D in terms of AU-BU cases approach is repre-
sented with representative control points pairs (44-40 encir-
cled in figure 5, 43-39, 42-38 etc.), with differences between
experimental and FEM ranging from 6% to 12%.

Fig. 7. TFCC deformation field normalized at 10mm scale.

 5

IV. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK

The strategy to simulate TFCC welding distortion based on
calibration and verification activities has been presented. FEM
tool included adapted material properties and meshing of the
welding chord, weld pass clustering and analytically defined
cooling law, based on experimental outputs from qualification
coupons and full scale mockups. Dedicated simple coupons to
be easily replicated with FEM models are necessary especially
considering boundary conditions to be applied. Also, we need-
ed to define methods with the right precision level to obtain
and compare the data during all the weeks-lasting welding
processes, since too small values of displacements are not
meaningful in the result comparison. TFCC global model was
built and results are currently being assessed, which foresee a
main global approach of the AU-BU structures and a limited
out-of-plane distortion. In the future, methods for TFCC data
comparison with real welding process will be developed, to-
gether with the final over-metal and tolerances assessment.

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