Journal of Ship Research, Vol. 59, No. 3, September 2015, pp.

133–144
http://dx.doi.org/10.5957/JOSR.59.3.150011

Journal of
Ship Research

Numerical and Experimental Studies of Residual Stresses

in Multipass Welding of High Strength Shipbuilding Steel
Guangming Fu,* Tetyana Gurova,† Marcelo I. Lourenco,* and Segen F. Estefen*
*Ocean Engineering Department, COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
†
Shipbuilding Department, UEZO, Western State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The article contributes, through numerical simulation based on models calibrated by

experimental results, to better estimate residual stresses and distortions in welded
structures representatives of ships and offshore platforms considering welding proce-
dures relevant to shipyard current practices. A multipass welding is carried out to
investigate the residual stresses in laboratory tests. The temperature at several posi-
tions on a plate sample is recorded with thermocouples and residual stresses are
measured using an x-ray diffraction technique. Finite element (FE) models are devel-
oped in this study and experimentally validated. The three dimensional (3D) moving
Goldak’s double-ellipsoidal heat source model is employed in the simulations.
A Levenberg–Marquardt neural network algorithm is employed to determine the geo-
metric parameters of the heat source model. The technique based on neural network
is applied to dimension the heat source later employed in the thermal analysis using
2D FE model to reduce the computer time of the numerical simulation and to make it
feasible for shipbuilding industry applications. The numerical results of temperature
and residual stress distribution are correlated with the experimental measurements.
Finally, the effects of preheat and interpass temperatures on the residual stresses are
investigated using numerical simulation. The effects of the transient releasing tem-
perature on the residual stresses are also discussed.

Keywords: welding residual stress; x-ray diffraction; finite element model; preheat
and inter-pass temperature; releasing temperature

1. Introduction magnetic technology cannot be implemented effectively. An exper-

SEVERE WELDING residual stresses yield a greater contribution to
the final stress field (Brickstad & Josefson 1998) and can produce
significantly negative influence on the performance of welded struc-
tures, such as ultimate strength, corrosion, and fracture (Aloraier
et al. 2013). The residual stresses in the fusion and heat-affected
zones (HAZ) are more severe, particularly in multipass welding
process. It is caused by the prior weld metal being subjected to
several thermal cycles (Deng & Murakawa 2006; Deng 2009).
Given the dimensions of the components of actual structures,
with typically complex and confined locations, the nondestructive
measurement such as neutron diffraction, x-ray diffraction, and
Manuscript received at SNAME headquarters May 29, 2015; revised man-
uscript received June 5, 2015.
imentally validated numerical simulation becomes a suitable tool
in the investigation of welding process (Smith & Smith 2009a;
Muransky et al. 2012). To understand the mechanism of the
welding-induced residual stresses and distortions during the struc-
ture construction, the investigation of welding process has become
a major concern in recent years.
Because the welding process is a highly nonlinear coupled
thermal–mechanical process, the accurate results of the thermal
analysis is a prerequisite to ensure the reliability of numerical
simulation. Several heat source models were developed to simulate
the heat flux during the welding. Goldak (1984) conducted the
semi- and double-ellipsoidal heat source models to investigate the
thermal behavior of low penetration welding process. Then, numer-
ous numerical models were developed to investigate the tempera-
ture fields, the welding-induced residual stresses, and distortions

SEPTEMBER 2015 1542-0604/15/5903-0133$00.00/0 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 133

determined by various welding procedures using ellipsoidal Table 2 Welding procedures
heat source model. Goyal et al. (2009) conducted an analytical
model to predict the temperature fields and geometry of the weld Wire diameter Current Voltage Travel speed Inter-pass
pool in pulsed current gas metal arc (GMA) welding process. Pass (mm) (A) (V) (mm/min) temperature (
C)
Joshi et al. (2010) performed 3D numerical models to investigate
1 1.2 160 28.9 160 -
the residual stresses in circular hollow section T-joint and plate 2 1.2 140 28.1 110 70
T-joint. Kong et al. (2011) and Zeng et al. (2011) conducted 3 4.0 530 31.0 260 32
numerical and experimental studies to investigate the welding- 4 4.0 563 31.0 260 109
induced residual stresses in hybrid laser-GMA and hybrid laser- 5 4.0 560 30.0 260 170
Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding processes, respectively. Aloraier
and Joshi (2012) and Lee et al. (2014a, 2014b) carried out exper-
imental and numerical studies to investigate the welding-induced placed at the center of the plate (9.5 mm from the upper surface)
residual stresses in flux-cored arc welding process. before the welding as shown in Fig. 1, where T is the transient
Some researchers (Smith & Smith 2009b; Joshi et al. 2013) con- temperature at the measuring position. The thermocouples TC-1,
cluded that the parameters of the heat source model that signifi- TC-2, TC-3, TC-4, and TC-5 at 20, 20, 24, 30, and 30 mm from
cantly influence the temperature distribution should be initially the weld centerline and 40, 20, 0, 20, and 40 mm from the
determined in the thermal analysis. Fu et al. (2015) developed a centerline of the specimen are shown in Fig. 1.
neural network to predict the parameters of the double-ellipsoidal A portable x-ray diffraction equipment with a measuring accu-
heat source model in metal inert gas welding (MIG) process, then racy of 20 MPa is employed to measure the residual stresses at
the neural network was employed to predict the geometry of heat various points in longitudinal and transversal directions. The x-ray
source model in T-joint welding process and the results show a good diffraction measuring system is shown in Fig. 2 and contains the
agreement with the experimental measurements (Fu et al. 2014). following parts: 1) a support base to attach the equipment to the
In this article, experimental and numerical studies are carried specimen to be measured and to adjust it in the measuring loca-
out to investigate the residual stress in multipass welding process. tion, 2) an x-ray tube associated with a high voltage module and
The experimentally validated neural network program (Fu et al. two air-cooled chromium anodes, which generate two convergent
2015) based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm (Levenberg x-ray beams to measure the residual stress, 3) a collimator unit
1944; Marquardt 1963) is employed to determine the geometric coupled with a film cassette, and 4) power and control unit.
parameters of Goldak’s double-ellipsoidal heat source model In the spherical coordinate system, f and y are the azimuthal
(Goldak 1984) in a multipass welding process in the laboratory. and the polar angles, respectively, as shown in Fig. 3. It is assumed
The residual stresses are measured with a portable x-ray diffrac- that s1 and s2 are the principal stresses and that sf is the stress
tion measuring technique. The numerical results of temperature component in the f direction. On the surface of the specimen, the
and residual stresses are calibrated using experimental measure- third principal stress component s3 ¼ 0. The strain component efw
ments. Finally, the effects of preheat and interpass temperatures on the surface of the specimen along f and w directions can be
on the residual stresses are investigated using numerical simula- expressed as:
tion. The effects of transient temperature, when releasing the
welding constraints, on the residual stresses are discussed. 1þv v
efy ¼ sf sin2 y  ðs1 þ s2 Þ ð1Þ
E E
2. Experimental procedure where E and v are the Young’s module and Poisson’s ratio,
respectively. The difference between any two strain components
In laboratory, two plates are welded using MIG manual and in the direction defined by f and y can be calculate as follows:
submerged arc welding (SAW) procedures with a groove angle of
20
and a root opening of 6 mm. Each plate has the dimensions 1þv
2 
Defy ¼ sf sin y2  sin2 y1 ð2Þ
of 1200 mm 500 mm 19 mm. The material of specimens is E
+

DH36 ferric steel that is typically employed in offshore structure The stress components sw can be calculated as:
constructions. Table 1 shows the chemical compositions. The MIG
welding procedures are performed in the first two welding passes E 1
whereas the SAW welding procedures are employed automatically sf ¼ Defy ð3Þ
1 þ v sin2 y2  sin2 y1
in the final three welding passes. The welding procedures are
shown in detail in Table 2. In the numerical model for experimental Appling the differentiation of Bragg’s law yields:
calibration, the real welding time has been used in each welding
pass. Then, the interpass temperature was obtained numerically. dfy  d0

efy ¼ ¼ ctgu0 ufy  u0 ð4Þ
To monitor the temperature history during the welding process, d0
the K-type thermocouple with a precision of 0.75% T is directly where dwy, d0, uwy, and u0 indicate the spacing between the lattice
planes and the diffraction angles for measured and stress-free
Table 1 Chemical compositions of the DH36 steel plate (mass%) material in the direction defined by f and y, respectively.
Finally, the stress component sw is obtained:
C Si Mn P S Ti Nb
E 1

sf ¼ ctgu0 ufy1  ufy2 ð5Þ
0.16 0.34 1.45 0.025 0.020 0.022 0.025 1 þ v sin2 y2  sin2 y1

134 SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

 Fig. 1 Experimental setup: (a) thermocouples arrangement and (b) high restrained setup



In the portable x-ray equipment, y1 ¼ 0 and y2 ¼ 50 (Estefen
et al. 2012). To determine the surface stress component sf, it is
necessary to measure the diffraction angles corresponding to the
deformation from the lattice planes, with the normal characterized
by two angles y1 and y2. The detailed principal mechanism of
measurement was described by Estefen et al. (2010).
This measuring technique is widely employed for several
practical engineering applications. Monin et al. (2009) and
Estefen et al. (2012) investigated the surface residual stresses
in butt welded steel in MIG welding using the x-ray diffrac-
tion method. The welding residual stress relaxation behavior
Fig. 2 Residual stress measurement: (a) x-ray diffraction portable
equipment and (b) the measuring target point
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in the single and double electrode welding of the butted-
jointed steel plate were monitored using the x-ray diffraction
measuring system for more than 2 weeks after the removal
of the welding constraints by Estefen et al. (2012) and Estefen
et al. (2013).
3. Finite element model
To save the computer time, a 2D FE model is carried out in the
numerical simulation using finite element (FE) methodology
based on ABAQUS code (2010), as shown in Fig. 4a. The 2D FE
model can give quite good residual stress fields in the mechani-
cal analysis (Lindgren 2001, 2006). The eight-node quadratic
heat transfer quadrilateral element is employed in thermal analy-
sis. In mechanical analysis, the generalized plane strain eight-
node quadratic element with reduced integration is employed.
The mesh with the minimum size of 0.5 mm 1.5 mm is
+
identical in both thermal and mechanical models. The experi-
mental setup for the high restrained boundary conditions along
the transverse sides is shown in Fig. 1b. The applied boundary
conditions in the numerical model are shown in Fig. 4b. The
displacements in x and y directions and the rotation around
z direction were restrained at one node on the bottom sur-
face. The displacement in y direction and the rotation around
Fig. 3 The mechanism of the x-ray measurement technique
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 135
 Fig. 4 (a) 2D FE numerical model and (b) boundary conditions in thermal and mechanical analysis

z direction were restrained as shown in Fig. 4b. After the welding, 3.1. Thermal analysis and heat source model
the restrained boundary conditions are released when the temper-
ature cools to the environment temperature. A spring with a low For an isotropic material, the transient temperature field T (x, y,
degree of stiffness is applied in the y direction to resolve the z, t) is a function of the spatial coordinates (x, y, z) and time t.
rigid movement when releasing the restrained boundary condi-  2 
› T ›2 T ›2 T ›T
tion, as shown in Fig. 4b. k þ þ þ q ¼ rc ð6Þ
›x2 ›y2 ›z2 ›t
The thermo–mechanical properties of DH36 are similar to those
of EN 10,025 S355J2G3 (Camilleri et al. 2013). Therefore, the where q, r, c, and k are the internal heat source, the material density,
temperature-dependent material properties for this steel from specific heat capacity, and thermal conductivity, respectively, and
SYSWELD material laboratory (SYSWELD 2006) were used in T (x, y, z, t) is the temperature at the point (x, y, z) at time t.
the numerical simulations as shown in Fig. 5. The temperature increment based on the traveling instant point
heat source model was firstly developed by Rosenthal (1941):
 02

exp  4pkRðtt0 Þ
dTt0 ¼ dQdt0 ð7Þ
rc½4pkðt  t0 Þ3=2
k
Where k ¼ is the thermal diffusivity, (x0 , y0 , z0 ) is the loca-
rc
tion of the heat source dQ at a time t0 ; and R’2 ¼ (x  x0 )2 þ
(y  y0 )2 þ (z  z0 )2 is the distance to the heat source center.
Since the traveling point heat source model was developed to
investigate the temperature in the welding process, several heat
source models were developed to analyze the heat transfer process
accurately during the welding process. Goldak (1984) combined
two semi-ellipsoidal heat source models and proposed a double-
ellipsoidal heat source model, as shown in Fig. 6.
The power density distributions of the front and rear quadrants
of this moving heat source model are depicted in equations (8) and
(9), respectively.
pffiffiffi " #
6 3ff hQ 3ðzz0 vtÞ2 3ðxx0 Þ2 3ðyy0 Þ2
qf ðx;y;zÞ¼ p ffiffiffi exp   
af bcp p a2f b2 c2
Fig. 5 Thermo–mechanical properties from SYSWELD database for
EN 10,025 S355J2G3 steel (Camilleri et al. 2013) ð8Þ

136 SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

 Table 3 Predicted parameters of Goldak’s heat source
model (mm)

Parameters Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 3 Pass 4 Pass 5

af 4 4 10 10 10
ar 16 16 40 40 40
b 4 4 10 10 10
c 12 12 16 16 16

In the thermal analysis, the convection and radiation boundary

conditions are considered in this models. Heat loss because of the
convection is governed by Newton’s law:

qc ¼ hðT  T0 Þ ð10Þ

The heat loss on the surface because of the radiation to the

Fig. 6 3D double-ellipsoidal heat source model and its application environment is calculated from equation (11), following the
in 2D FE numerical model Stefan–Boltzmann’s law:
h i
" # qr ¼ es ðT þ 273:15Þ4  ðT0 þ 273:15Þ4 ð11Þ
pffiffiffi
6 3fr hQ 3ðzz0 vtÞ2 3ðxx0 Þ2 3ðyy0 Þ2
qr ðx;y;zÞ¼ pffiffiffi exp   
ar bcp p a2r b2 c2 where qc and qr are the heat fluxes across the surface, h is a
reference film coefficient, T is the current temperature, T0 is the
ð9Þ ambient temperature, e is the emissivity of the surface, and s
is the Stefan–Boltzmann’s constant 5.67 10-8 Wm-2 K-4. The

+
where x, y, and z are the local coordinates of the heat source
film coefficient and emissivity are defined as 20 Wm-2 K-1 and
model, x0, y0, and z0 are the initial coordinates of welding arc, v
0.85, respectively.
is the welding velocity along the z direction, t is the current time,
The thermal effects because of the solidification of the molten
Q is the power input, af and ar are the front and the rear semiaxes
pool are considered in terms of the latent heat effects. In this
of the heat source, respectively and the parameters b and c are the
study, the value of the latent heat is assumed as 270 kJ/kg. The
width and the depth of the heat source model, respectively. The
solid and liquid temperatures are assumed as 1440 and 1505
C
variables ff and fr, represent the heat apportionments of the heat
2af (Camilleri et al. 2013), respectively.
flux in the front and rear quadrants, where ff ¼ and
2ar af þar
fr ¼ are assumed, respectively. 3.2. Mechanical analysis
af þar
Although the 2D FE model was employed in this numerical The temperature fields obtained with a 2D numerical model
model, the 3D-double-ellipsoidal heat source model was adopted are employed as the initial predefined temperature fields in
to simulate the heat flux during the actual welding procedure. An the mechanical analysis. The total strain increment {de} at the
image of the 3D heat source in the 2D numerical model is integration point is governed by equation (12) below:
depicted in the Fig. 6. The 3D heat flux is traveling on the top
surface of specimen at a welding speed v. The heat flux will de ¼ deel þ depl þ deth ð12Þ
change for each increment as the heat source passes through the
2D model. where deel, depl, and deth are the elastic, plastic, and thermal strain
The parameters of the heat source model that significantly increments, respectively.
influence the temperature distribution should be initially determined Because of the phase-transformation-induced strain has insig-
in the thermal analysis (Smith & Smith 2009b; Joshi et al. 2013). nificant contribution to the total strain increment in low-carbon
In this study, the size of the fusion zone (FZ) in transverse and steel (Deng & Murakawa 2006), hence, the phase transformation
penetration directions were calculated based on the analytical effects on residual stress are neglected in this study. The creep
solution, which is developed by Fachinotti et al. (2011). Those strain increment is not considered in the present mechanical
sizes of FZs and the corresponding geometric parameters of heat analysis because the welding process is a very short heating pro-
source were employed as the training data of the neural network, cess (Deng 2013).
which was developed based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algo- The material annealing behavior is modeled using a built-in
rithm (Levenberg 1944; Marquardt 1963). A description of annealing facility in ABAQUS (2010) to eliminate the hardening
the neural network formulation and calibration are described in history when the temperature is above an annealing temperature.
detail by Fu et al. (2015). The welding procedures are shown in In this model, an isotropic annealing temperature (1300
C)
Table 2. Table 3 shows the predicted geometric parameters of heat (SYSWELD 2006) is applied, above which the accumulated
source model. equivalent plastic strain is set to zero. When the temperature

SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 137

 Fig. 7 Comparisons of weld bead profile between numerical simulation and experimental measurement

cools below the annealing temperature, the hardening behavior
is reactivated.
4. Numerical model validation
4.1. Temperature distribution
Figure 7 shows the comparisons of the weld bead profile
between numerical and the experimental results after the last
welding pass. The weld bead penetration shows a good agreement
between the numerical simulation and the experimental measure-
ments. Figure 8 shows the temperature profile variation during the
welding process when the 3D heat source is traveling along the
welding line. When the front part of the 3D heat source arrives at
the middle of the plate at 136 seconds, the size of the FZ increases,
see Fig. 8a. The size of the FZ presents the maximum magnitude
when the center of the 3D heat source arrives as shown in Fig. 8b.
Then the size of the high temperature region (>1440
C) decreases
as the heat source center passed the middle of the specimen, as
shown in Figs. 8c–d.
Figure 9 shows a temperature comparison between the exper-
imental measurements and numerical simulations at thermocou-
ple TC-3 in five different welding passes. The results show a
good agreement between the numerical simulations and the
experimental measurements.
The experimental measured maximum temperatures at thermo-
couples TC-1, TC-2 and TC-3, TC-4 are listed in Table 4. Because
the thermocouples are arranged along the welding direction, the
2D model cannot simulate all the thermocouples in the actual
locations. Therefore, the maximum temperatures of the 2D model
at the locations, TC-1/2 and TC-4/5 (see Fig. 4) that are equidis-
tant to the welding centerline with TC-1, TC-2 and TC-3, TC-5 at

Fig. 8 The FZ variation during 3D heat source traveling along the welding line: (a) at 136 seconds, (b) at 139 seconds, (c) at 145 seconds, and
(d) at 150 seconds

138 SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

Fig. 9 Comparisons of temperature distribution at TC-3 in various welding passes for 2D numerical model and experimental measurements: (a) the
first welding pass, (b) the second welding pass, (c) the third welding pass, (d) the fourth welding pass, and (e) the fifth welding pass

the center of the plate, are compared with the experimental mea-
surements, as shown in Table 4, respectively. The maximum error
(17.5%) was occurred at TC-2 during the second welding pass.
The temperature values of the numerical simulation and those of
the experimental measurements show a good agreement. The
numerical models are reasonably validated by the experimental
test in thermal analysis.
4.2. Residual stress distribution
Figure 10 shows the development of the residual stress associ-
ated with the temperature at point A (15 mm from the welding
line). When the temperature is increased in the first pass, the
adjacent regions of the FZ expand, and the upper surface com-
presses, resulting in a simple uniaxial compressive stress in this

Table 4 Experimental and numerical results of maximum temperatures at various thermocouples (
C)

Pass TC-1 experiment TC-2 experiment TC-1/2 numerical Error maximum (%) TC-4 experiment TC-5 experiment TC-4/5 numerical Error maximum (%)

1 201 201 225 11.9 180 174 161 10.6

2 328 309 363 17.5 250 229 267 16.6
3 441 416 363 3.8 331 309 318 3.9
4 477 452 494 9.3 374 352 375 6.5
5 471 442 511 15.6 364 341 400 17.3

SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 139


Fig. 10 Development of transient temperature and residual stress
region. The compressive stress decreases when the temperature
increases. Finally, the magnitude of the longitudinal stress remains
constant after the first welding pass. During the application of the
second weld, this region is reheated and is again subjected to a
compressive stress. When the temperature decreases, the compres-
sive stress decreases and becomes a tensile stress and finally
maintains a constant value. Similar behavior was observed in the
Fig. 11 Residual stress on the upper surface: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress
140 SEPTEMBER 2015
final three welding passes. The experiment result at the point A,
when the temperature cools to the ambient temperature is plotted
in Fig. 10b.
Figure 11 shows the longitudinal and transverse residual stress
distributions on the upper surface of the plate. The numerical
results of longitudinal and transverse residual stresses become
constants in the area away from the weld centerline in one-pass
welding process under the free shrinkage boundary conditions
(Smith & Smith 2009b; Mark et al. 2012). In the multipass
welding process, the distribution of the longitudinal stress is
affected slightly by the sequences of weld bead deposits (Mark
et al. 2012). In this study, the longitudinal stress is linearly
increasing because of the influences of the sequences of welding
deposit and the boundary conditions. Residual stresses are mea-
sured by employing the x-ray diffraction portable measuring sys-
tem with a measuring accuracy of 20 MPa. Stress measurements
in arbitrary directions before welding indicated the magnitude of
residual stresses between 40 and 60 MPa induced by fabrication.
The numerical results are obtained at different locations on the
surface. At the FZ and its vicinity, both the longitudinal and
transverse residual stresses measured experimentally agree approx-
imately with the numerical simulation results. However, in the
range located far from the FZ and HAZ, the experimental mea-
surements are larger than the values of the numerical simulation,
as shown in Fig. 11, because of the influences of the initial resid-
ual stresses induced by the manufacturing process. Because the FZ
and HAZ have undergone high temperatures during the welding,
the effects of the initial residual stress induced on the final resid-
ual stress can be neglected (Deng 2013).
4.3. Effects of the preheat and interpass temperature on
residual stresses
The effects of the preheat temperature on the distribution of the
longitudinal and transverse residual stresses are investigated.
Three cases, Preheat-50, Preheat-100, and Preheat-200, are studied
at preheat temperatures of 50
C, 100
C, and 200
C, respectively.
Interpass temperatures are assumed to be 100
C during the
multipass welding process for the case studies with preheat effect.
The interpass temperature (the temperature of weld bead that
deposited during the last welding pass) was controlled by adjusting
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 Fig. 12 Residual stress on the upper surface under different preheat temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress
the time step increments (the cooling time after the previous
welding pass). When the interpass temperature (100
C) is obtained,
the corresponding time step increments are adopted in the numer-
ical model. In the numerical model, the preheat temperature is
applied on the model as an initial predefined field in the thermal
analysis. Finally, the calculated temperature fields are used as the
initial predefined field in the mechanical numerical model.
The distributions of the longitudinal and transverse residual
stresses on the upper surface and through the thickness (marked
as Line-A, see Fig. 10a) direction under the various preheat tem-
peratures are illustrated in Figs. 12 and 13. It can be seen that the
preheat temperature has no influence on the residual stress distri-
bution both in the weld zone and HAZ and in the regions located
far from the welding centerline.
The effects of interpass temperature on the residual stress are
investigated at temperatures of 50
C, 100
C, and 200
C for
Interpass-50, Interpass-100, and Interpass-200, respectively. The
interpass temperature was controlled by adjusting the time step.
Increasing the time step, the interpass temperature will decrease.
When the interpass temperature is obtained, the corresponding
Fig. 13 Residual stress (along line-A) under different preheat temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress
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time step increments are employed in the numerical model for
the parametric analysis. The preheat process is not considered in
this case study.
Comparisons of longitudinal and transverse residual stresses
under several interpass temperatures along the transversal direction
are shown in Fig. 14. The maximum magnitude of the residual
stress decreases as the interpass temperature increases. However,
the size of the high stress region increased with an increasing
interpass temperature. In the region where the distance from the
weld centerline is greater than 50 mm in this model, the interpass
temperature has a negligible effect on the residual stress field.
Figure 15 shows the residual stress distribution along the thick-
ness direction. It can be concluded that the longitudinal residual
stresses decrease with increasing interpass temperature, particu-
larly on the inside of the plate.
4.4. Effects of releasing temperature on residual stress
In the laboratory test, the restrained boundary conditions are
released when the temperature cools to the ambient temperature.
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 141
 Fig. 14 Residual stress on the top surface under different interpass temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress

Fig. 15 Residual stress (along line-A) under different interpass temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress

Fig. 16 Residual stress under different releasing temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress

142 SEPTEMBER 2015 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

 Fig. 17 Residual stress (along-line-A) under different releasing temperatures: (a) longitudinal stress and (b) transverse stress
In this section, the effects of releasing temperature on the residual
stress distribution are investigated for different releasing tempera-
ture. Specifically, five cases, T-25, T-60, T-110, T-250, and
T-400 are investigated. For instance, in the case of T-110, when
the maximum temperature on the plate cools to 110
C, the
restrained boundary condition is removed. The final residual
stresses are recorded when the temperature cools to the ambient
temperature. The interpass temperatures are assumed to be the
same for the laboratory test, as shown in Table 2.
Longitudinal and transverse residual stresses on the top surface
and across the thickness are plotted in Figs. 16 and 17. The
effects of the releasing temperature on the residual stress can be
neglected when the releasing temperature is less than 110
C.
Otherwise, the longitudinal stresses increase as the releasing tem-
peratures increase, both on the top surface and through the thick-
ness (line-A). In regions located far from the weld centerline, the
releasing temperature has a negligible effect on the residual stress
field. The effects on the transverse residual stresses can be
neglected. It is concluded that the residual stresses can be reduced
significantly when the releasing temperature is less than 110
C
in this study.
5. Conclusions
A validated numerical model has been developed to investigate
residual stresses in the multipass welding process. The following
conclusions can be inferred.
A numerical simulation of the welding process, coupled with
the predicted geometric parameters of heat source, is performed in
a simplified 2D analysis to reduce computational time. The tem-
perature distribution obtained with the numerical simulation
shows a good agreement with the experimental measurements.
The proposed numerical methodology, combined with written
subroutines, can obtain acceptable temperature fields.
In the mechanical analysis, the proposed numerical model can
reasonably obtain both longitudinal and transverse residual stresses
compared with experimental measurements.
Since it is a multipass welding process, the final welding pass
provides the largest contributions to the final residual stresses
(Deng 2013). However, the preheat effects on the final welding
pass are insignificant. Hence, the longitudinal and transverse
SEPTEMBER 2015
residual stresses are not sensitive to the preheat temperature. Sim-
ilar results can be found in T-joint welding with DH36 steel
(Fu 2015) and welding simulation with S355J2 þ N steel (Heinze
et al. 2012). The preheat temperature effects on the residual stresses
using different steel grades should be carefully investigated for the
actual welding process.
On the upper surface of the plate, the maximum magnitude of
the residual stress decreases with increasing interpass tempera-
ture. Through the thickness, the residual stresses decrease with
increasing interpass temperature, particularly in the inner region
of the plate.
The releasing temperature significantly affects the longitudinal
residual stress. The longitudinal residual stresses increase with
increasing releasing temperature. The residual stresses can be
reduced significantly when the releasing temperature is less than
110
C in this study. However, the effects of releasing temperature
on the transverse residual stresses can be neglected.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Petroleum
Agency (ANP), the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq), and
the FINEP (PROFAB - grant number 01.10.810.00) for their
financial support. Special thanks to the technical team from the
Subsea Technology Laboratory - COPPE, Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro. Guangming Fu acknowledges the financial sup-
port for his D.Sc. research from the China Scholarship Council.
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