Numerical and dimensional analysis for prediction of line heating residual deformations

Line heating process is a very complex phenomenon as a variety of factors affects the amount of residual deformations. Numerical thermal and mechanical analysis of line heating for prediction of residual deformation is time consuming. In the present work dimensional analysis has been presented to obtain a new relationship between input parameters and resulting residual deformations during line heating process. The temperature distribution and residual deformations for 6 mm, 8 mm, 10 mm and 12 mm thick steel plates were numerically estimated and compared with experimental and published results. Extensive data generated through a validated FE model were used to find co-relationship between the input parameters and the resulting residual deformation by multiple regression analysis. The results obtained from the deformation equations developed in this work compared well with those of the FE analysis with a drop in the computation time in the order of 100 (computational time required for FE analysis is around 7 200 second to 9 000 seconds and where the time required for getting the residual deformation by developed equations is only 60 to 90 seconds).