Abstract
The portion of thin plate is expected to increases as to the development of design and fabrication technology. The weld-induced deformation is more serious in thin plates than in thick plates because heat affect zone of thin plates is wider than that of thick plates, and in addition internal and external constraints much more influence upon weld-induced deformation of thin plates. This paper is aimed at applying the mechanical tensioning method to fillet weld of thin plates to reduce the weld-induced deformation. For this purpose, fillet welding tests have been carried out for several thin plate specimens with varying plate thickness and magnitude of tensile load. From the present study, it has been found that the tensioning method is effective on reduction of weld-induced deformation.