05.03: Weld residual stresses effects in the design of welded plate girders: Simulation and Implementation

Eurocode 3 offers different possibilities on a numerically-aided design of welded plate girders. In this, a geometrically and materially nonlinear analysis of the imperfect structure (GMNIA) provides the theoretically highest possible degree of realism. A correct implementation of “imperfections” is of critical importance in the practical application of this method. The current design rules are based on long term experience in terms of traditional (“old”) welding procedures and regular (“low strength”) steel grades. Thus, they provide very approximate (but safe) rules for these structures. With the introduction of modern shop welding operations and materials, many of these assumptions seem to be over-conservative. A revision of these rules is being processed in different national and international research projects. This particular study focusses on the weld residual stresses and their effects in conventional steel S355 and high strength steel S690. Metal active gas (MAG) welding under shop welding conditions was used. The measurement of weld residual stresses on component-like samples (carried out by the BAM Bundesanstalt fur Materialforschung und -prufung in Berlin) has been widely published. The hereupon based (simplified) welding simulation as part of a subsequent structural analysis is shown here. A novel numerical approach how to directly incorporate the results into large structural components models is presented. The capacity analysis is performed on a simple example for weak-axis buckling. The results indicate significant improvements in the utilization of load-bearing capacity and underline the superior buckling assignment for the S690 compared to conventional S355. The experimental validation of the findings is currently being prepared.