WELDING SIMULATION
Prepared by:
Assoc. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Yupiter HP Manurung
&
Postgraduate Students
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Usage of welding
Welding has always played a major role in industrial
production
Automotive Industry
Shipbuilding Industry
Aerospace Aircraft Industry
Heavy Industry
Power Industry (Nuclear)
Despite many advantages welding shows some process-
specific disadvantages
Thermal expansion and shrinkage
Micro structural transformations
Stresses & distortions
Cracks
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Why welding simulation?
For distortion control, fabrication design via modeling can
eliminate the need for expensive distortion corrections
minimize capital equipment cost
improve quality
Residual stress control via modeling can
reduce weight
maximize fatigue performance
lead to quality enhancements
and minimize costly service problems
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Influencing factors on the performance
of the product
Fatigue strength, crash- and in-service behavior
are determined by
Part stiffness
Material characteristics
Change in material
Residual stresses
Plastic history
.....
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Product improvement: Predictive
performance simulation
Process Stamping Casting
Welding / Joining
Chassis and Frame
Structural Fatigue
Product Crash
behavior strength
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Cost reduction: Distortion engineering
Listen into your
manufacturing halls: In
many cases you can even
hear the cost (distortion
repair)
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Opponent effects influencing distortions
and residual plastic strains
Level
• Risks of in
service failure
• High residual
• Risks of process stresses and
failure plastic strains
• Large distortions
Not clamped Degree of clamping Fully clamped
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Welding Simulation using simufact.welding
The ‘Research Group (Arbeitskreis - AK) Welding
Simulation’ of the German Automotive Industry investigated
for a software solution with reliable physical results but
easy to use by welding experts
The AK ordered and (co-) funded the dedicated
development of a welding solution at Simufact Engineering
Simufact.welding is driven by the needs and specifications
of the German Automotive Industry
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Process Parameters for Welding Simulation
Geometry
Solver
Heat-
Source
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Geometry/Meshing
Automatic filler material generation
filler mesh generation based on user given
parameters
Several types of seams are supported
The filler follows automatically the weld path
Nodes are automatically projected to the structural parts
Non-compatible meshes are supported
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Weld Path (1)
Most complicated task in model preparation in
welding simulation is defining the weld path
In Simufact.welding welding paths, directions or
sequences can simply be defined and modified
for process variations
Several robots are supported:
Robots can be activated and deactivated at arbitrary
process times
Each robot can work on several welding paths
depending on the user defined sequence
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Weld Path (2)
Powerful time management for time sequences
Structured tables, easily to modify
Overview graphs for time schedules
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Weld Path (3)
The orientation of the heat source is essential to
define
Simufact.welding supports changing orientation
vectors along the welding path
Welding path with
orientation vectors
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Fixation (1)
Fixations of welded structures are basically the
necessary geometric and mechanical boundary
conditions, known from standard Finite Element
simulation
Fixations are predefined boundary conditions:
Bearings
Fixings
Clamps (incl. stiffness and initial force definition)
Fixings are defined from a manufacturing of view
– the mechanical (FE specific) formulation is
done automatically
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Fixation (2)
Arbitrary kinds if fixations can be defined, imported from
CAD systems as geometrical entities
The mechanical as well as the thermal contact situation
are taken into account
distortion gradient
due to contact
situation
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Heat Source (1)
Simufact.welding supports currently supports two
different kind of heat sources:
3D-Goldak volume source (Gaussian volume model)
for
• GMA welding (Gas Metal Arc)
• MIG (Metal Inert Gas)
• MAG (Metal Active Gas)
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Heat Source (2)
Simufact.welding supports currently supports two
different kind of heat sources:
Cylindrical source connected with a Gaussian surface
distribution for
• Laser Welding
• EB Welding (Electronic Beam)
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Heat Source (3)
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Heat Source (4)
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Heat Source (5)
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Heat Source (6)
Heat source calibration is essential to get reliable
results
Calibration happens based on fast, thermal only
pre analysis – the simulated cross section is
compared with real welded pattern
A special weld monitor supports automatic cross
sections along the whole welding path
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Material (1)
For welding simulation a lot of material
parameters are required
Mechanical
Thermal
Microstructure
All temperature dependent
Simufact own database concept for materials
Im- and export of materials as XML data
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Material (2)
Simufact.welding supports:
Youngs modulus (temp. dep.)
Density
Poissons ratio (temp. dep.)
Thermal expansion (temp. dep.)
Thermal conductivity (temp. dep.)
Specific heat capacity (temp. dep.)
Latent heat
Solidus and liquidus temperature
Flow stress curves (temp., strain
and strain rate dep.)
Microstructure and phase transformation data
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Solver
Simufact.welding solver technology supports
Finite Element technology
Thermal-mechanical coupling
Elastic-plastic coupling
Transient analysis
Two solvers are available:
MSC.Marc (MSC.Software)
IFE Weldsim
(IFE – Institutt for Energiteknikk, Norway)
Parallel computing for high performance simulation
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Handling (1)
Simple definition using Windows ‘drag
& drop’
A process is defined by several items
of the object catalog
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Handling (2)
Weldmonitor
Automated cross sections
Dynamic visualization
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Handling (3)
Postprocessing:
Time-history visualization
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Handling (4)
Postprocessing:
Distortion analysis
Comparison with initial geometry
Scaling of deformation for better visualization
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Handling (5)
Postprocessing:
Residual stresses after welding and cooling
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Handling (6)
Postprocessing:
Distortion due to residual stresses
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