Experimental and Finite Element Analysis of a T-Joint Welding

This paper presents the Finite Element (FE) modeling of a two-seam welding process for a T-joint with a V chamfer preparation. The aim of the model is to predict the deformations, distortions and residual stresses resulting from the welding of the plates and experiments have been carried out in order to compare to the FE model. The "birth and death" method is used in ANSYS © to simulate the filler metal deposition and the heat generation and weld pool simulation are conducted accordingly with the double ellipsoid configuration as proposed by Goldak et al. The model takes into consideration the temperature dependent non-linear material properties and uses a new formulation to compute the temperature dependent combined coefficient of heat loss. Improvements in the calculation are achieved by combining two types of meshing. The FE simulation is divided into two consecutive parts: the thermal simulation followed by the structural simulation. The results of the numerical model are compared to experiments.