scholarly journals Finite Element Prediction of Residual Stress Distributions in a Multipass Welded Piping Branch Junction

Author(s):  
Wei Jiang ◽  
Kadda Yahiaoui

Piping branch junctions and nozzle attachments to main pressure vessels are common engineering components used in the power, oil and gas, and shipbuilding industries amongst others. These components are usually fabricated by multipass welding. The latter process is known to induce residual stresses at the fabrication stage which can have severe adverse effects on the in-service behavior of such critical components. It is thus desirable if the distributions of residual stresses can be predicted well in advance of welding execution. This paper presents a comprehensive study of three dimensional residual stress distributions in a stainless steel tee branch junction during a multipass welding process. A full 3D thermo-mechanical finite element model has been developed for this purpose. A newly developed meshing technique has been used to model the complex intersection areas of the welded junction with all hexahedral elements. Element removal/reactivate technique has been employed to simulate the deposition of filler material. Material, geometry and boundary nonlinearities associated with welding were all taken into account. The analysis results are presented in the form of stress distributions circumferentially along the weldline on both run and branch pipes as well as at the run and branch cross sections. In general, this computational model is capable of predicting 3D through thickness welding residual stress, which can be valuable for structural integrity assessments of complex welded geometries.

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Jiang ◽  
Kadda Yahiaoui

Piping branch junctions and nozzle attachments to main pressure vessels are common engineering components used in the power, oil and gas, and shipbuilding industries amongst others. These components are usually fabricated by multipass welding. The latter process is known to induce residual stresses at the fabrication stage, which can have severe adverse effects on the in-service behavior of such critical components. It is thus desirable if the distributions of residual stresses can be predicted well in advance of welding execution. This paper presents a comprehensive study of three dimensional residual stress distributions in a stainless steel tee branch junction during a multipass welding process. A full three dimensional thermomechanical finite element model has been developed for this purpose. A newly developed meshing technique has been used to model the complex intersection areas of the welded junction with all hexahedral elements. Element removal/reactivate technique has been employed to simulate the deposition of filler material. Material, geometry, and boundary nonlinearities associated with welding were all taken into account. The analysis results are presented in the form of stress distributions circumferentially along the weld line on both run and branch pipes as well as at the run and branch cross sections. In general, this computational model is capable of predicting three dimensional through-thickness welding residual stress, which can be valuable for structural integrity assessments of complex welded geometries.


1997 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
D J Sharman ◽  
H L Stark ◽  
D W Kelly

A proposed destructive technique to determine residual stresses in thick-walled axisymmetric pressure vessels employs incremental strain gauge data in a finite element algorithm to construct the initial residual stress distribution. The data acquisition component of the proposed technique has similarities with Sachs' bore out method, enabling independently obtained data to be employed by the finite element algorithm. A comparison between the two methods based on the same strain data enables the accuracy of the finite element algorithm to be assessed. Results to date suggest that the new algorithm determines residual stress distributions to an accuracy comparable with Sachs' bore out method. An advantage that the proposed technique has over Sachs' bore out method is that it can be applied to axisymmetric thick-walled pressure vessels of geometries more complex than plain cylinders.


Author(s):  
George Vinas ◽  
Tamba Dauda ◽  
Nicola Moyes ◽  
Alan Laird

The Finite Element Method (FEM) has been implemented in 3D to predict welding residual stresses in repair welds. The analysis has been used to achieve more accurate residual stress predictions for the weld at the cost of long computation times. The use of this CPU intensive approach has been facilitated by the advent of ever-faster computer processors being made more accessible to the engineering community. The same technique has also been used with coarser meshes involving simplified welding sequences where a number of weld passes are “lumped” together to reduce the simulation time. The authors argue that this latter approach can be very useful in predicting the more global component response — in cases where 2D model symmetries are not applicable — and for rapid identification of problem areas where finer simulations would be prohibitive. The authors show an example of a residual stress prediction for a letterbox repair obtained using the FEM. Good agreement between this prediction and experimental measurements is shown. The FEM simulation technique has been used to predict residual stress formation during the welding process and subsequent service loading of the component. This analysis shows the residual stress field relaxation following “shakedown”. The component under service conditions is subjected to pressure loading and a small amount of bending stress. Based on recent residual stress experimental programmes conducted at Mitsui Babcock Energy Limited (MBEL), the authors provide a brief discussion on the ways in which various experimental techniques have been used to verify welding residual stress predictions from FE. The authors argue that just as there has been an interest in the field to measure residual stresses in the highly stressed regions of a weld, it is equally important to measure stresses in areas of relatively low stress to confirm that stresses do indeed die out away from welds. It is in the latter case where some experimental techniques cannot perform as well as other simple, well proven, strain measurement techniques.


Author(s):  
Yongbin Wen ◽  
Luyang Geng ◽  
Jianming Gong ◽  
Yangfei Wang ◽  
Shantung Tu

The finite element (FE) analysis was applied to investigate welding residual stresses generated in the weld region of the ultra-thick 13MnNiMoR steel cylinder of a large Ethylene Oxide (EO) reactor made in China, with an outer diameter of 6760mm and wall thickness of 110mm. The FE Analysis consists of the nonlinear thermal and thermo-mechanical axisymmetric numerical simulations. In the FE analysis, an alternating welding model was created for the double U-type groove welding. The residual stress distributions on the inside surface and the outside surface were obtained. The analyzed results show that the axial and hoop welding residual stresses on the inside surface and the outside surface are tensile in the weld zone and its vicinity. The residual stress distributions on the inside surface and the outside surface are very sensitive to the distance from the weld centerline. The effects of the temperature of PWHT on the welding residual stress were analyzed by taking into account PWHT at 600 °C, 620 °C and 640 °C. The simulated results show the residual stresses decrease with the increase in the temperature of PWHT, and an appropriate temperature of PWHT is 620 °C for the ultra-thick cylinder of the domestic EO reactor.


2000 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-154
Author(s):  
John H. Underwood ◽  
Michael J. Glennon

Laboratory fatigue life results are summarized from several test series of high-strength steel cannon breech closure assemblies pressurized by rapid application of hydraulic oil. The tests were performed to determine safe fatigue lives of high-pressure components at the breech end of the cannon and breech assembly. Careful reanalysis of the fatigue life tests provides data for stress and fatigue life models for breech components, over the following ranges of key parameters: 380–745 MPa cyclic internal pressure; 100–160 mm bore diameter cannon pressure vessels; 1040–1170 MPa yield strength A723 steel; no residual stress, shot peen residual stress, overload residual stress. Modeling of applied and residual stresses at the location of the fatigue failure site is performed by elastic-plastic finite element analysis using ABAQUS and by solid mechanics analysis. Shot peen and overload residual stresses are modeled by superposing typical or calculated residual stress distributions on the applied stresses. Overload residual stresses are obtained directly from the finite element model of the breech, with the breech overload applied to the model in the same way as with actual components. Modeling of the fatigue life of the components is based on the fatigue intensity factor concept of Underwood and Parker, a fracture mechanics description of life that accounts for residual stresses, material yield strength and initial defect size. The fatigue life model describes six test conditions in a stress versus life plot with an R2 correlation of 0.94, and shows significantly lower correlation when known variations in yield strength, stress concentration factor, or residual stress are not included in the model input, thus demonstrating the model sensitivity to these variables.


Author(s):  
Shivdayal Patel ◽  
B. P. Patel ◽  
Suhail Ahmad

Welding is one of the most used joining methods in the ship industry. However, residual stresses are induced in the welded joints due to the rapid heating and cooling leading to inhomogenously distributed dimensional changes and non-uniform plastic and thermal strains. A number of factors, such as welding speed, boundary conditions, weld geometry, weld thickness, welding current/voltage, number of weld passes, pre-/post-heating etc, influence the residual stress distribution. The main aim of this work is to estimate the residual stresses in welded joints through finite element analysis and to investigate the effects of boundary conditions, welding speed and plate thickness on through the thickness/surface distributions of residual stresses. The welding process is simulated using 3D Finite element model in ABAQUS FE software in two steps: 1. Transient thermal analysis and 2. Quasi-static thermo-elasto-plastic analysis. The normal residual stresses along and across the weld in the weld tow region are found to be significant with nonlinear distribution. The residual stresses increase with the increase in the thickness of the plates being welded. The nature of the normal residual stress along the weld is found to be tensile-compressive-tensile and the nature of normal residual stress across the weld is found to be tensile along the thickness direction.


Author(s):  
Hyun-Jae Lee ◽  
Jae-Yoon Jeong ◽  
Yun-Jae Kim ◽  
Poh-Sang Lam

This paper provides engineering J estimation equations for Spent Fuel Canisters (SFCs) under combined mechanical and welding residual stress (WRS) fields. The basic form of estimation equations is reference stress-based ones as in R6. Interaction between mechanical (primary) and residual (secondary) stresses is treated using the V-factor. Based on systematic finite element (FE) analysis and J results, the V-factors for the combined mechanical and welding residual stresses are reported.


2012 ◽  
Vol 184-185 ◽  
pp. 649-652
Author(s):  
Gui Fang Guo ◽  
Shi Qiong Zhou ◽  
Liang Wang ◽  
Li Hao ◽  
Ze Guo Liu

The effects of electron beam welding on the residual stresses of welded joints of pure aluminum plate 99.60 are studied by through-hole-drilling and blind-hole-drilling method. Meanwhile, based on the thermal elastic-plastic theory, and making use of ANSYS finite element procedure, a three - dimensional finite element model using mobile heat source of temperature and stresses field of electron beam welding in pure aluminum is established. The welding process is simulated by means of the ANSYS software. The results show that the main residual stress is the longitudinal residual stress, the value of the longitudinal residual stress is much larger than the transverse residual stress. But the residual stress in the thickness is rather small. And in the weld center, the maximum value of residual stresses is lower than its yield strength. The simulation results about the welded residual stresses are almost identical with the experimental results by measuring. So the research result is important to science research and engineering application.


2013 ◽  
Vol 758 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Fabiano Rezende ◽  
Luís Felipe Guimarães de Souza ◽  
Pedro Manuel Calas Lopes Pacheco

Welding is a complex process where localized and intensive heat is imposed to a piece promoting mechanical and metallurgical changes. Phenomenological aspects of welding process involve couplings among different physical processes and its description is unusually complex. Basically, three couplings are essential: thermal, phase transformation and mechanical phenomena. Welding processes can generate residual stress due to the thermal gradient imposed to the workpiece in association to geometric restrictions. The presence of tensile residual stresses can be especially dangerous to mechanical components submitted to fatigue loadings. The present work regards on study the residual stress in welded superduplex stainless steel pipes using experimental and a numerical analysis. A parametric nonlinear elastoplastic model based on finite element method is used for the evaluation of residual stress in superduplex steel welding. The developed model takes into account the coupling between mechanical and thermal fields and the temperature dependency of the thermomechanical properties. Thermocouples are used to measure the temperature evolution during welding stages. Instrumented hole drilling technique is used for the evaluation of the residual stress after welding process. Experimental data is used to calibrate the numerical model. The methodology is applied to evaluate the behavior of two-pass girth welding (TIG for root pass and SMAW for finishing) in 4 inch diameter seamless tubes of superduplex stainless steel UNS32750. The result shows a good agreement between numerical experimental results. The proposed methodology can be used in complex geometries as a powerful tool to study and adjust welding parameters to minimize the residual stresses on welded mechanical components.


2003 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C Wimpory ◽  
P. S May ◽  
N. P O'Dowd ◽  
G. A Webster ◽  
D J Smith ◽  
...  

Tensile welding residual stresses can, in combination with operating stresses, lead to premature failure of components by fatigue and/or fracture. It is therefore important that welding residual stresses are accounted for in design and assessment of engineering components and structures. In this work residual stress distributions, obtained from measurements on a number of ferritic steel T-plate weldments using the neutron diffraction technique and the deep-hole drilling method, are presented. It has been found that the residual stress distributions for three different plate sizes are of similar shape when distances are normalized by plate thickness. It has also been found that the conservatisms in residual stress profiles recommended in current fracture mechanics-based safety assessment procedures can be significant—of yield strength magnitude in certain cases. Based on the data presented here a new, less-conservative transverse residual stress upper bound distribution is proposed for the T-plate weldment geometry. The extent of the plastic zone developed during the welding process has also been estimated by use of Vickers hardness and neutron diffraction measurements. It has been found that the measured plastic zone sizes are considerably smaller than those predicted by existing methods. The implications of the use of the plastic zone size as an indicator of the residual stress distributions are discussed.


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