Computers & Structures Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 40742, 1993 ws-7949/93 S6.00 + 0.

00
Printed in Great Britain. 0 1993 Pcrgamon Press Ltd

THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS DUE TO WELDING

PROCESSES BY THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
S. E. CHIDIAC~and F. A. MIRZA~
tstructures Laboratory, Institute for Research in Construction, National Research Council,
Ottawa, Ontario KIA 0R6, Canada
SMcMaster University, Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Hamilton,
Ontario LSS 4L7, Canada

(Received 5 December 1991)

Abstract-A finite element model has been developed to predict the residual stresses generated in
weldments during fabrication. The thermal history of the weld piece is computed using a three-dimensional
heat flow model which serves as input for computation of stresses. A micro-structural model, based on
the Avrami equation, and the grain growth law have also been employed to predict the grain growth due
to welding. A coupled thermal elastic visco-plastic formulation including the micro-structural changes has
been developed to predict the overall deformations and residual stresses caused by a welding thermal cycle.
The model is applied to an austenitic type of steel, namely AISI 308, and the predictions are in good
agreement with experimental results reported in the literature. The longitudinal stresses are found to be
as high as the yield stress, and the transverse stresses are found to be almost half of the longitudinal

1. INTRODUCTION is modelled using either the Neumann and/or Cauchy

type of natural boundary conditions in the analysis.
Welded structures generally involve complicated geo-
The heat affected zone is assumed to be made of
metrical shapes and are subjected to severe thermal
only the grain growth zone, and effects of the weld
loads during fabrication. A proper analysis to deter-
deposit and the transition zone on the thermal cycle
mine strength and stiffness of such structures depends
have been ignored in this study. The micro-structural
largely on the accurate predictions of the heat flow
model employed to compute the austenitic grain
and a realistic stress model that is capable of includ-
growth as a function of time and temperature is based
ing the thermal effects and their influence on the
on the Zener pinning grain growth model. The
mechanical properties. Proper representation of the
volume fraction is approximated using the Avrami
geometry of the welded structures, particularly in the
equation [4-6] and the isothermal dissolution of
weld region, is of significant importance. The ability
particles by diffusion is described by the following
of the finite element method to deal with structures
relation
of arbitrary complex shape, transient loading, and
non-linear material response, makes it very attractive (6Df)“Z
for analysis of welded structures. The heat flow and f, =f* exp- -, 13
the micro-structural formulations for the analysis
of welded structures have been reported by the where fw is the initial volume fraction, D is the
authors [l-3], and for completion, a very brief review diffusion coefficient for particle dissolution, t is the
of the models employed is presented.
time, and I is the particle half spacing. Combining
A three-dimensional finite element model has been
the above relation with the grain growth model,
developed to determine the thermal cyclic response
eqn (3) is obtained and used to compute the changes
for various materials and for different types of weld-
in the austenitic grain size
ing arcs. The welding arc has been modelled using
the heat generated by the electric power, where
4 d4 =A exp-$dr,
the effective thermal power of the welding arc is (3)
l+Bd
expressed as
where
Q = 0.24~ ;, (1)
A = 2u,R @a)
where Q is in calories per centimeter, V is the arc B = -0.5(4nZV~)1’3(3f,)23. (4b)
voltage in volts, I is the arc current in amps, q is the
arc efficiency and v is the velocity of the arc move- 4 is the grain size, gb is the grain boundary tension,
ment. The dissipation of this heat by the weld piece R is the atomic volume, NVis the particles per unit

407
408 S. E. CHIDIAC and F. A. MIRZA
volume, & is the activation energy for grain growth,
T is the absolute temperature, and R is the gas
constant. A detailed description of the above formu-
lation, including its implementation, can be found
in [I, 21.
In this paper, the main objective is to present
the stress model that was developed along with the
thermal and micro-structural models in order to
compute the residual stresses caused by welding
processes. To capture both the plastic and the viscous
effects that occur at high temperatures, an implicit
elastic v&o-plastic fo~ulation has been developed
based on the Prandtl-Reuss flow rule and von M&es
yield criterion. A solution technique has also been
proposed for the implicit time stepping formulation.
To demonstrate the potential of the proposed model
for practical applications, both the deformations and
residual stresses caused by a bead-on-edge weld
have been predicted. The numerical results are then
compared with the experimental ones reported by
Hwang [7].
2. STRESS MODEL FORMULATION
The nine-node isopatamettic shell element is em-
ployed to model the workpiece. This element, first
introduced by Ahmad et al. [8], has gained a consider-
able attention due to its capabilities of modelling
both thick and thin plates and shells. The detailed
formulation of the finite element model using
the isoparamet~c shell element can be found in
Chidiac [1] and Zienkiewicz [9], and only the pro-
cedure for non-linear analysis is outlined here.
Due to the non-linear nature of the problem, the
principle of virtual work is adopted to obtain the
discretized equations of equilibrium as
in which {_/“j is the global load vector, {S) is the
global displacement vector. For elastic visco-plastic
analysis, the stiffness matrix, [KJ, takes the following
form
[K] = [B]r[Dn’P][B]dV,
sV
where [LfeUp],the elastic visco-plastic compliance
matrix, is derived according to the procedure outlined
by Kanchi et al. [IO] and takes the following form
(7)
The implicit nature of the proposed formulation is
now embedded into the stiffness matrix through the
following implicit equation for the visco-plastic strain
rate
‘+““‘iw> =(I _@)(‘i”} +,(I+A’<w),
1 (9)
where 6 represents implicitness in time. The rate of
change of eqn (9) with respect to the stress field is
computed from
The effective v&co-plastic strain rate is taken to be a
function of temperature, structure and stress, and
takes the following form
@ = AS,g” exp - -CL u 11
RT’
Due to the implicit nature of the formulation both,
the visco-plastic strain rate and the stress field, have
to be updated and at the same time comply with
eqn (11). It is proposed that for the 1 + Al time and
the n + 1th iteration within a time step, the stress field
be computed using the following relation
1 ‘tAta,+ ,} =: [oi~][{‘+A’~} _ {’ +Art’h}_ {‘tag)
-At[(l - e)(v~) + e{‘+‘%;p)
-e[‘+A’Xn](‘+d’anl]]. WI
In order to efficiently perform an implicit elastic
visco-plastic analysis, a new numerical algorithm has
been proposed.
3. SOLUTION TECHNIQUE
The difficulties encountered in the solution process
are caused by the continuous updating of the visco-
plastic strain rate and the stress field within each time
increment, This can be resolved by adopting the
following steps
1. For every time step, the overall equilibrium
of the structure is checked using the virtual work
principle
and the Newton-Raphson method is employed for
the iterative procedure during each time step which
leads to the following equation
2. Once equilibrium is established, the time step is
incremented by At and consequently, the thermal
 Thermal stress analysis due to welding processes by FEM 409

Table 1. Chemical composition of 308 type stainless steel 171 Table 2. Properties of welding arc
Cr Ni C Mn Si P S GMA weld
17/21 IO/l2 0.08 2.0 1.0 0.045 0.03 Current (amps) 250
Voltage (volts) 27
Arc speed (cm/s) 1.19
strain, temperature and structure fields are updated. Efficiencv 0.43
In order to minimize numerical instability, the magni-
tude of the thermal strains are compared to the 4. APPLICATIONS
magnitude of the total strains, and if they are found
to be greater than a specified percentage a sub- The stress model, using the heat flow and the

iterative process is invoked. The incremental thermal
strains are sub-divided so that it does not violate the
above condition. For these sub-intervals, the same
temperature and structure field is used.
3. Having established the thermal load, the stiffness
matrix is computed using eqn (6), in which the elastic
visco-plastic compliance matrix is a function of both
the updated stress and temperature fields. The visco-
plastic strain component rates are then computed
using eqn (11) which are given by
4. The incremental displacement {A’+ArSn} are
computed according to eqn (14) and subsequently the
incremental strains and stresses; then (i) update the
total strains and stresses, (ii) calculate the visco-
plastic strain rate according to the updated stress
field, (iii) using the updated visco-plastic strain rate,
recompute the equivalent stress field from eqn (12),
(iv) repeat steps (ii) and (iii) until the updated stress
and visco-plastic strain rate field correspond to each
other.
5. Calculate the unbalanced load vector using
eqn (13).
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until the incremental solution
has converged within a desired tolerance y, which is
expressed as follows [ 131:
7. Once the tolerance specified in eqn (16) is met,
the next thermal load is introduced and the process
continues until the entire thermal history has been
covered.
micro-structural models, is now employed to analyse
welding problems. Hwang [7l had conducted exper-
iments on austenitic stainless steel 308, whose compo-
sition is given in Table 1. In his experiments, Hwang
examined two types of arcs, namely a gas metal arc
(GMA) and a gas tungsten arc (GTA). He used the
two arcs to create a bead-on-edge weld and a heat-on-
edge weld. However, the deformations due to the
bead-on-edge weld were only reported and therefore
are the ones presented in this paper.
The properties of the GMA welding arc are given
in Table 2. The thermophysical and the mechanical
properties employed in the finite element modelling
are listed in Table 3. The details of the experiments
can be found in Hwang [7l and the results are used
only for comparison purposes.
Analysis of bead-on-edge weld
The specimen studied is that of weldment using
a bead-on-edge with a GMA process. The finite
element mesh for the three-dimensional heat flow
analysis along with the dimensions of the specimen is
shown in Fig. 1. The plate is subdivided into 48 finite
elements along the length, six elements along the
width and one element along the depth. Since only
one welding pass is considered, the temperature gra-
dient across the depth is assumed to be insignificant
and hence justifies the use of only one element in that
direction. It is also assumed that the heat is dis-
tributed equally between the two welded pieces and
hence permits the use of symmetry in the analysis to
follow.
The maximum temperature reached across the
width (i.e. away from the weld) at the centerline from
both the finite element model and the experimental
study by Hwang [7l is shown in Fig. 2. The transient
temperatures at 2.54 cm away from the welding edge,

Table 3. Thermophysical and mechanical properties of stainless steel used in the

FE analysis
Thermal conductivity [ 121 K = 0.028 + 3.7 x 10-V
(ca&n&WC)
Diffusivity [ 121 a = 0.093 + 1.1 x lo?
(cm%=)
Coefficient of thermal For T< WC, a,= 16.56 x 10e6
expansion [4] For T> lOO”C, a,= 19.8 x 10e6
Modulus of elasticity [IS] E = 1.9502x 108exp-“.omJr
@N/m)
Yield function [17] For T c 350 K, Y = 1000 x (544 - 1.083T)
@N/m) For T>350K, Y=lOOOxQl4-0.1425T)
410 S. E. CHIDIAC and F. A. MIRZA

80 -

X4

L -d

Dimensions: L = 121.92 cm
b- 10.16cm 10-n ’ * ’ ’ ’ 4 ’ 3 ’ 1 ’
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
1= 1.27 cm
x= 2.54 cm lhs, set

Fig. 1. Model for the heat analysis of bead-on-edge and Fig. 3. Transient temperature of 2.54 cm from welding edge
heat-on-edge weld. during a GMA weld.

800
above, is now adopted to dete~ine the effects of
both the thermal cycle and the micro-structural
500
P changes. The mesh pattern, the visco-plastic material
properties and the boundary conditions adopted are
f 400
shown in Fig. 4. The plate is supported at the corners
9,
t 3cil
as shown in Fig. 4. It is believed to be a good
E
boundary representation of the experimental setup.
.E 200
To minimize the computational cost, only half of the
ii
plate is analysed. This leads to two types of boundary
100 condition; a free surface boundary and a contact
boundary. A free surface boundary is appropriate to
0 model the boundary ahead of the welding arc because
0 2 4 6 6 10
of the gap that exists between the two plates.
awayfrom welded edge, cm
CWance
The difficulty arises in modelling of the boundary
Fig. 2. Profile of maximum temperature reached during a
behind the welding arc, especially after the weld has
GMA weld.
solidified. In general this is very complex and involves
out-of-plane displacements. In this study, the out-of-
observed experimentally and computed analytically, plane displacements are assumed to be small and
are shown in Fig. 3. The comparison of the numerical hence ignored. This assumption allows the boundary
and experimental results indicates that the finite to be modelled as a contact surface.
element model gives a good prediction of the maxi- The transient central deflections at point A in
mum temperature (Fig. 2) reached in the specimen. Fig. 4, observed experimentally by Hwang and com-
Also from Fig. 3, it can be concluded that the welding puted using the proposed stress model, are shown in
arc mode1 proposed is quite adequate. Fig. 5. The transient thermal strains, at 2.54 and
With good representations for the actual transient 4.45 cm away from the welded edge and along the
temperature dist~bution, the stress model, presented centerline, for both the experimental and analytical

0.635 cm
0.635 cm
1.27~1
1.905 cm

2.54 cm

3.175 cm

48xZ54cm
i
Material Properties: Exponent, n .. 7.9
Dam Constant, A = 1Oio
Activation Energy, C&, = 280 K&mole
Pr~x~ne~al Dads CoeRlcient, & = 3.7 x I 0e5
Fig. 4. Model for the stress analysis and the visco-plastic material properties U61.
 Tbennal stress analysis due to welding processes by FEM 411

0.2

0.15

0.1
q Exptwimsntaldata[4] q ExpsdmmWdata[41
0
0.05 0 Awtka'- 141 o Analy&aldata[r)]

0 -1OOl ” ” ” ” “‘I !l
0 20 40 a0 SO 100 120 140 160 0 20 40 60 90 100 120 140
Time,sec nme,sec

Fig. 5. Transient deformation at the centre of the welded Fig. 7. Transient longitudinal strain at 4.54 cm from welded
piece. edged.

50 , , I , I, I , I , I

results are shown in Figs 6 and 7, respectively.

The longitudinal and transverse residual stresses A Stressssafter76.2eeC
0 StmssssaIterl39.7sec
computed after 76.2 and 139.7 set along the line
perpendicular to the weld are plotted in Figs 8 and 9,
respectively.
It appears that the finite element results obtained 1
using the proposed model correlate much better with
the experimental results than the analytical results
reported by Hwang [7]. The maximum deflection
computed from the proposed model is slightly less
1 ,v, , , , ’ , , , , , 1
=0 2 4 6 0 10 12
than the experimentally measured values. A compari- Distancefmm Me welded line,cm
son of the time history for the central deflection
Fig. 8. Longitudinal residual stress distribution.
obtained from the present model with those obtained
experimentally indicates that the response is in very
good agreement from 0 to 40 set and after 110 sec. the thermal strains initially, the overall transient
The discrepancy observed between 40 and 110 set is response correlates quite well with the experimental
considered to he due to larger time intervals and results. As the specimen cools off, the strains from the
larger tolerances for the convergence criterion em- proposed finite element model are slightly smaller
ployed in the analysis. It appears that while the larger than the experimental values. While the possible
residual load was carried to the following loading sources of errors in the finite element model have
intervals, some self correction eventually led to more been identified before, the possible errors in strain
accurate results for responses beyond 110 sec. The measurement at elevated temperature along with
more relaxed tolerance for convergence is used for the uncertainties of the material properties can also
economic reasons. explain the discrepancy mentioned above. Although
It is clear from Fig. 6 that the finite element this is very difficult to conclude.
model predicts the thermal strains that are of the From Fig. 7, it appears that the finite element
same magnitude as those observed experimentally. model, again, predicts larger thermal strains initially
Although, the model overestimates the magnitude of and slightly smaller magnitudes as the specimen cools
off. It can also be observed that there is a slight
0.6, ( , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

24 A SWssaesaiter75.2sec
g 0 Sirsssesaftsrl39.7sec

is 20
g

t 12
16

3
P 9
0
LT
4

0
lima, ssc 0 2 4 6 5 10 12
Dtstancsfromthewebdline.cm
Fig. 6. Transient longitudinal strain at 2.54 cm from welded
edged. Fig. 9. Transverse residual stress distribution.
412 S. E. CHIDIACand F. A. MIRZA
oscillation between 55 and 75 set and is believed to be
due to the relaxed convergence criterion. For clarifi-
cation purposes, the model employed by Hwang [7]
does not compensate for material non-linearities, and
as observed, poor results are evident.
Although, there are no experimental results avail-
able to check the magnitude of the residual stresses
shown in Figs 8 and 9, the profiles of both the
longitudinal and transverse residual stresses obtained
are very reasonable and appear to be similar to those
reported in the literature [12-141 for several material
types. The maximum computed value for the longi-
tudinal residual stress is 420 MPa in comparison to
500 MPa, the magnitude of the yield stress at room
temperature. This confirms that the residual stresses
in the austenitic stainless steel of type 308 weldments
can be of comparable magnitude to the yield stress.
The maximum value computed for the transverse
stress is about half that of the yield stress. This value
appears to be slightly larger than those reported in
the literature [12-141.
5. CONCLUSION
The predictions of the heat flow model presented
are in very good agreement with the experimental
results reported in Hwang [7]. The heat source model
presented turns out to be versatile and can be
employed to model different weld types. It appears
that the effects of the molten zone are negligible on
the heat flow analysis and the peak temperature after
comparison with the experimental results.
A mixed type boundary condition, i.e. a free
surface ahead of the welding arc and a contact type
behind the welding arc along the line of symmetry,
models the welded edge fairly well. The prediction
for the transient central deflection and the transient
thermal strains are in good agreement with the
available experimental data. The distribution of the
residual stresses appears to be very reasonable and is
similar to those reported in the literature for different
arc properties of the same weld type.
For the numerical examples presented, the longi-
tudinal residual stress is found to be as high as the
yield stress and almost twice the value of the trans-
verse residual stress. Therefore, caution must be
exercised when dealing with austenitic stainless steel
weldments.
Acknowledgemenf-The authors wish to thank the Natural
sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for
their financial support.
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