• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.65-72
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• 2010

Some structural members of large-scale marine vessels such as large-scale offshore structures and very large container ships are assembled by very thick plates of which thickness exceeds 60mm. Also, high-tensile steels have been selected to meet the required structural strength and fatigue strength. Generally, multi-pass welding method such as FCA(Flux-Core Arc) welding has been used to join the thick plates. Considering the welding residual stresses, fatigue strength of the welded joints of thick plates should be assured since the residual stress influences the fatigue strength. This paper presents a numerical procedure to investigate the residual stress of structure joined by multi-pass FCA welding so that it can be incorporated into the fatigue strength assessment considering the effect of welding residual stress. The residual stress distribution is also measured by X-Ray diffraction method. The residual stress obtained by the computational model also has been compared with that of experiment. The results of FEA are in very good agreement with the experimental measurements.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.26-32
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the residual stresses at the multi-pass FCA weldment using the finite element analysis (FEA). In order to do it, an H-type specimen was selected as a test specimen. The variable used was in-plane restraint intensity. The temperature distribution at the multi-pass FCA butt weldment was evaluated in accordance with the relevant guidance recommended by the KWJS. The effective conductivity for the weld metal corresponding to each welding pass was introduced to control the maximum temperature below the vaporization temperature of weld metal. The heat flux caused by welding arc was assumed to be applied to the weld metal corresponding to welding pass. With heat transfer analysis results, the distribution of transverse residual stresses was evaluated using the thermo-mechanical analysis and compared with the measured results by XRD and uniaxial strain gage. In thermo-mechanical analysis, the plastic strain resetting at the temperature above melting temperature of $1450^{\circ}C$ was considered and the weld metal and base metal was assumed to be bilinear kinematics hardening continuum. According to the comparison between FEA and experiment, transverse residual stresses at the multi-pass FCA butt weldment obtained by FEA had a good agreement with the measured results, regardless of in-plane rigidity. Based on the results, it was concluded that thermo-mechanical FE analysis based on temperature distribution calculated in accordance with the KWJS’s guidance could be used as a tool to predict the distribution of residual stress of the multi-pass FCA butt weldment.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.679-687
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• 2008

The fatigue life of ship structure under cyclic loading condition is made up of crack initiation and propagation stages. For a welding member in ship structure, the fatigue crack propagation life is more important than the fatigue crack initiation life. To calculate precisely the fatigue crack propagation life at the critical welding location, the knowledge of the residual stress sensitivity on the fatigue strength is necessary. In this study, thermo elastic-plastic analysis was conducted in order to examine the effect of residual stress on the fatigue crack propagation life. Also the fatigue crack propagation lives considering residual stress were calculated using fatigue crack growth code, AFGROW, on the basis of fracture mechanics. AFGROW is widely used for fatigue crack growth predictions under constant and variable amplitude loading. The reliability of AFGROW on the fatigue of ship structure was confirmed by the comparison of the estimated results with the fatigue propagation test results.