Abstract
As is well appreciated, welding is the most important fundamental process in manufacturing marine structures. However, weld-induced deformation is inevitable because of the non-uniform distribution of temperature during welding. The deformation caused by welding is one of the principal obstacles in enhancing the productivity in the manufacturing procedure for marine structures. This should be much more seriously considered in the case of the thin blocks found in a ship with multi-deck structures. This paper is concerned with the deformation control of thin panel blocks by applying intermittent welding to fillet welding. In order to investigate the quantitative effect of the intermittent welding, a thermo elasto-plastic analysis was carried out with various welding pitches and plate thicknesses. Welding tests were also carried out to show the validity of the present thermo-elasto-plastic analysis. Numerical analysis results showed good agreement with those of the welding tests. As far as the present numerical results are concerned, it has been seen that a more than 50% reduction in angular distortion can be achieved by applying the intermittent welding because of the low heat input.
