Actual application of FEM to analysis of large

scale mechanical problems in welding

H. Nishikawa*1, H. Serizawa2 and H. Murakawa2
The finite element method is a powerful tool for predicting welding distortion. However, the
mechanical phenomena are strongly non-linear and transient and thus, thermo–elastic–plastic
finite element analyses of the phenomena require very long computational time. To overcome this
problem, an interactive substructure method was developed as an approach to reduce the
computational time in three-dimensional analyses. In this paper, in order to confirm calculation
efficiency for a large scale problem, a pipe model with 538 200 degrees of freedom was
computed. Furthermore, the residual distortion in an engine component was computed and the
applicability of the calculation for problems in welding practices was demonstrated.
Keywords: Finite element method, Three-dimensional analysis, Large scale problem, Welding distortion, Computational time
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Introduction Therefore, it has been difficult to apply this method to

In recent years, the studies on application of a numerical
simulation technology have been frequently carried out
in the construction processing field. Their purposes are
to compensate for a shortage of experts, to minimise
human errors, to eliminate trial and error inefficiencies,
and to establish a construction technology on a scientific
basis. In the construction processing field, a simulation
technology of press fabrication and casting has arrived
at a level of practical use. However, numerical simula-
tion of welding has not been conducted widely. This is
because a welding phenomenon is strongly non-linear
and transient.
A number of researches on mechanical phenomena in
welding have been conducted for many years. Numerical
calculations of butt welds and fillet welds have been
vigorously carried out by the thermo–elastic–plastic
finite element method (FEM).1,2 These researches have
greatly contributed to the elucidation of mechanisms of
residual weld stresses and distortion.
Following the above activities, the predictive methods
of weld distortion based on inherent strain3–5 have been
developed as an approach to calculate the amount of
three-dimensional (3D) distortion simply. This has really
contributed to the improvement in construction accu-
racy of large scale structures such as ship hulls. It is
necessary to prepare a database concerning inherent
strain before using this method. A number of calcula-
tions and experiments are additionally requested to
prepare the database necessary for estimating welding
distortion in the case of welded joints with different
shapes or special materials in such engine components.
problems in welding practices.
To correctly calculate the amount of welding distor-
tion of a small member such as an engine component,
unsteady distortion at both the start and the end of
welding has to be calculated. The unsteady distortion
cannot be solved by the inherent strain method which
treats only quasi-steady distortion. It is thus necessary to
conduct 3D welding simulation. However, enormous
computation time is required even by a most advanced
computer if the 3D simulation is performed as a general
thermo–elastic–plastic problem. It follows that the 3D
simulation is impractical.
A number of researches for reducing computation
time of 3D welding simulation have been carried out.
One of those is the adaptive meshing procedure6 in
which refined meshes are embedded into the overall solid
meshes and the refined meshes which express a welding
source and its vicinity are moved. The second one is the
composite mesh method7 in which refined meshes
denoting a vicinity of a welding source are embedded
into a whole structure. The third one is the dynamic
substructure method8 in which a welded part is divided
from the whole structure and this division is renewed as
a welding heat source travels. However, all of these
methods are still impractical from a viewpoint of their
long computation time.
The authors have developed a welding simulation
technique by which mechanical phenomena in welding
can be calculated in high speed and high accuracy. The
applicability of this technique as a tool to solve
engineering problems in welding practices has been
verified.

1
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd, 1-1, Kawasaki-cho, Akashi, Hyogo, 673 Iterative substructure method
8666, Japan
2
Joining and Welding Research Institute, Osaka University, 11-1, In order to accelerate the computation of welding
Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567 0047, Japan simulation at higher speed, an interactive substructure
*Corresponding author, email nisikawa@ati.khi.co.jp method (ISM) was developed considering the futures of

ß 2007 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
Received 6 September 2006; accepted 8 September 2006
DOI 10.1179/174329307X164274 Science and Technology of Welding and Joining 2007 VOL 12 NO 2 147
 Nishikawa et al.
1 Iterative substructure method
mechanical phenomena in welding.9–11 The outline is
described below.
The most characteristic aspect in welding problems
is that the region in a strongly non-linear state as a
result of a thermo–elastic–plastic behaviour is restricted
in the vicinity of a welding heat source while the
wide area other than the restricted region is in an
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elastic or weakly non-linear state. The second feature is
that the non-linear area moves together with the heat
source.
In the usual FEM analysis, it is necessary to solve a
non-linear problem against a whole region even in the
case that a non-linear region is restricted into a narrow
area. It results in computing a large scale non-linear
problem step by step. To prevent this ineffective
computation, the authors have developed a method in
which a whole computational area is divided into a
weakly non-linear region A and a strongly non-linear
region B. As the region B travels together with a heat
source, the stiffness of the region A changes with time.
In order to avoid the change of the transient stiffness,
the authors have adopted a method of solving the non-
linear problem of a region (AzB) as a problem
combined with a weakly non-linear region (A’zB’)
and a strongly non-linear region B, as shown in Fig. 1,
where the region (A’zB’) is denoted as a whole area for
computation. In the inclement calculation, the stiffness
at the present step uses that at the previous step. In this
method, the balanced condition is satisfied in the region
(A’zB’)–(B) and the region B. At the same time,
continuity of displacement has been all the time held at
the boundary of the region (A’zB’)–(B) and the region
B (boundary C) and consequently, the balance of
reaction forces can be satisfied throughout the iterative
calculation.
The computation procedure is as follows:
(i) to solve the weakly non-linear region (A’zB’)
and compute displacement at the boundary C
(ii) to solve the strongly non-linear region B by
regarding the displacement on C computed at
step (i) as the displacement boundary condition
(iii) to compute the unbalanced reaction force
between region {(A’zB’)–(B)} and (B)
(iv) to provide the above unbalance force with the
region (A’zB’) and compute the displacement
to be corrected at the boundary C
Science and Technology of Welding and Joining
Actual application of FEM to analysis of mechanical problems in welding
(v) to iterate the steps (i) through (iv) until the
convergence is attained.
During this iterative calculation, the stiffness of the
region (A’zB’) is not renewed. It follows that any
computation other than the iterative calculation of a
small scale simultaneous equations for the strongly non-
linear region B becomes unnecessary. When a heat
source travels as the temperature step proceeds, the same
stiffness can be used as long as the stiffness of the region
(A’zB’) does not changed significantly. As a result, the
computation of large scale simultaneous equations can
be minimised and overall computation time can be
greatly reduced. Unless the computation for the region
B cannot be converged, the stiffness of the region
(A’zB’) is renewed. The elements to be contained in the
region B are determined automatically by the present
computer program. The condition that the relevant
element belongs to the region B is as follows:
(i) the temperature difference between the relevant
element and its neighbours over 50uC
(ii) element temperature over 300uC; or
(iii) the element under plastic loading and its
temperature is over 200uC.
The authors has confirmed that the simple model
simulation of welding using the ISM method12 gives
the same results by the conventional computation
methods but at very high speed. In this paper, the ISM
model has been further improved so that spring back
of a welded component can be calculated and the
calculated results have been compared with those of the
experiments.
Example calculation
Pipe model
A model of pipe circumferential welding was calculated
in order to examine computation efficiency of the large
scale ISM model. The model pipe is 300 mm in length,
160 mm in outer diameter and 5 mm in wall thickness.
The elements are equally divided in such that there are
300, 100 and 5 elements in the longitudinal, radial and
thickness direction respectively. It results in 150 000
elements, 180 600 nodes and freedom of 538 200. This
FEM model is shown in Fig. 2, where three components
of displacement are constrained at both pipe edges. A
computer with an Itanium2 of 1.5 GHz and 24 GB
memory was used. A skyline method was employed in
order to maintain the stiffness inverse matrix in the
whole region when solving the ISM simultaneous
equations.
Figure 3 shows a computation result about the
temperature distribution of the model pipe in a quasi-
steady state. The temperature steps after the completion
of welding till reaching the room temperature was 356.
Figure 4 shows the shape of a strongly non-linear region
B which was determined automatically by the computa-
tion program according to the distribution of the
temperature and plastic strain in a quasi-steady state.
Figure 5 shows the change in the number of elements in
the region B at each temperature step, indicating that the
number increases after welding starts and it levels off
after reaching a quasi-steady state at 80th step. The
element number increases immediately before 250th step
of the end of welding and then decreases drastically after
the completion of welding.
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 Nishikawa et al. Actual application of FEM to analysis of mechanical problems in welding

2 Finite element method for pipe model

is affected to a minute extent by the movement of the

region B which travels together with the heat source.
The computation can proceed throughout welding while
maintaining the same inverse stiffness matrix of the
whole region as that created at the first temperature step.
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It has been confirmed that the ISM method remarkably

reduces computation time for a large scale simulation.
Figure 6 shows the calculated deformation mode and
stress distribution in the model pipe. Figure 7 shows the
cumulative computation time of the model pipe against
the temperature step. If the stiffness of the whole region
is renewed at each step, the computation time increases
in a stairs like manner. However, it increases linearly
except at the beginning steps in the present calculation in
which the whole stiffness is created at the first step. The
increasing rate of the cumulative computation time
decreases during the cooling stage because the region B
narrows.
3 Temperature distribution of pipe model Table 1 shows the computing time and the memory
size of pipe model cooled down to the room tempera-
ture. The computing time was 79.2 h (3.3 days) and the
used memory size was 16.8 GB to maintain the inverse

4 Non-linear region B of pipe model

In a large scale model, the strongly non-linear region

B in the vicinity of the heat source occupies a small
portion of the whole computation region. The number
of the B region elements is 1170 that is only 0.8% of the 5 Change in number of elements in B region of pipe
total in a quasi-steady state. Therefore, the whole region model

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 Nishikawa et al. Actual application of FEM to analysis of mechanical problems in welding

8 Finite element method model of engine component

model

The material of the engine component is heat resistant

alloy, Hastelloy-X. The computed results are greatly
influenced by the physical properties of materials. The
6 Deformation and stress distribution of pipe model temperature dependent properties used in the present
paper are shown in Fig. 9.
Figure 10 shows a computed result of temperature
distribution in a quasi-steady state of the engine
component. The temperature step was 471 when the
temperature reaches the room temperature. Figure 11
shows the non-linear region B that was calculated
automatically in the program. Figure 12 shows the
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change in the number of the elements in the region B at

each step, indicating that the number increases at the
beginning of welding, decreases at the 50th step, then
levels off in a quasi-steady state and finally decreases
from 360th steps at the end of welding.
The number of the elements in the region B in a quasi-
steady state is 460 which are 4% of the whole elements.
This number is higher than that for the pipe model, but

7 Cumulative computing time of pipe model

stiffness matrix of the whole region. The effectiveness of

the present method was verified by the fact that a large
scale welding simulation of 356 steps and 540 000
degrees of freedom was completed only in 3.3 days.

Engine component
To confirm the applicability of the ISM simulation to
problems in welding practices, a model of an engine
component was welded circumferentially with a press
moulded disk and a machined boss part. The engine
component model consists of 11 664 elements, 20 160
nodes and 58 824 degrees of freedom. The FEM model
of the engine component is shown in Fig. 8. The same
Itanimu2 computer employed in the calculation in the
previous section was used. The inner and outer edges of
the component are restrained by a welding jig during
welding. The amount of spring back after the jig is
removed at the completion of welding was calculated.

Table 1 Computing time of pipe model*

Model name Computing time Memory size

Pipe 79.2 h (3.3 days) 16.8 GB

*Model size: 150 000 elements, 180 600 nodes, 538 200 free-
dom, 356 steps. 9 Material properties of Hastelloy-X

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 Nishikawa et al.
10 Temperature distribution of engine component model
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11 Non-linear region B of engine component model
12 Change in number of elements in B region of engine
component model
the calculation of the engine component was possible
throughout welding without renewing the stiffness of the
whole region because of high stiffness of the disk shape
Science and Technology of Welding and Joining
Actual application of FEM to analysis of mechanical problems in welding
13 Deformation and stress distribution of engine compo-
nent model
of engine component. Figure 13 shows the deformation
mode and stress distribution of the component in a
quasi-steady state.
Figure 14 shows a comparison of the calculated
amount of spring back of the component after welding
with that measured in the actually welded engine
component. The displacement in the radial direction
(R) and the axial direction (Z) at four sections (0, 90, 180
and 270u from the welding start) was compared. The
horizontal axis in the figure is normalised by the radius
of the disk. The displacement in the radial direction in
the experiments was almost nil at the relative radial
direction of 0.6. Although the calculation could not
reproduce this experimental result, the calculation as a
whole reproduces the experiments to a satisfactory
extent. As for displacement in the axial direction, the
calculation well reproduces that at 0 and 180u sections,
while the computation slightly underestimates the
displacement at 90 and 270u sections. It is considered
that the welding simulation by ISM is applicable to the
prediction of distortion in actual welding practices.
Figure 15 shows the change in the cumulative
computation time at each temperature step. The
computation time increases almost linearly for the
beginning welding duration while it does more immedi-
ately before the end of welding. During the cooling
stage, the incline of the cumulative computation time
decreases because of the reduction in the region B. A
stairs like rise in the computation time is not recognised
in Fig. 15. This means that the calculation could be
conducted throughout welding without renewing the
stiffness of the whole region.
Table 2 shows the total computation time and
memory size of the engine component cooled down to
the room temperature. The computation time was 2.7 h
and it would be more than 1 day if computation was
carried out using a widely used FEM software. It is
considered that the effectiveness of the ISM simulation
is verified.
Table 2 Computing time of engine component model*
Model name Computing time Memory size
Engine component 2.7 h 660 MB
*Model size: 11 664 elements, 20 160 nodes, 58 824 freedom,
471 steps.
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 Nishikawa et al.
14 Residual distortions of engine component model
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Conclusions
It was verified that welding simulation by the ISM
developed by the authors is applicable to problems in
welding practices. The following conclusions were
obtained.
1. In order to confirm calculation efficiency of a large
scale model by ISM, pipe circumferential welding of
538 200 degrees of freedom was calculated. By solving a
strong non-linear region consisting of only 0.8% of the
whole region, deformation and stress of the whole pipe
model could be calculated.
2. When a non-linear region occupies only a small
part of the whole region, it is possible to continue model
simulation throughout the process while maintaining the
inverse stiffness matrix created at the start of the
computation as that of the whole region. The larger
15 Cumulative computing time of engine component
model
Science and Technology of Welding and Joining
Actual application of FEM to analysis of mechanical problems in welding
the model to be calculated is, the more significant
improvement of computation time is obtained.
3. Computation time of pipe circumferential welding
of 538 200 degrees of freedom was 3.3 days using an
Itanium2 of 1.5 GHz computer.
4. In order to confirm the applicability of the ISM
simulation to problems in welding practices, the amount
of spring back after welding of an engine component of
58 824 degrees of freedom was calculated. The com-
puted results were in good accordance with the
experimental ones of deformation. It was verified that
welding simulation by ISM is applicable to the predic-
tion of welding deformation.
5. The computation time of an engine component of
58 824 degrees of freedom by the ISM simulation was
2.7 h. It is much less than that by the simulation using a
widely used FEM software.
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