ANALYSIS OF TWO DIMENSIONAL THERMAL STRESSES AND METAL MOVEMENT DURING WELDING

The strain response of metal plates during welding is discussed and current state-of-the-art efforts to analyze the phenomena are reviewed. Mechanical and physical temp-erature dependent properties; transient strain and temper-ature distribution data obtained from experiments on 6061 aluminum alloy in the T651 condition; and a data reduction computer program are presented. The experiments were designed to look at the macroscopic effects of welding upon heat treatable age hardened alloys while at the same time approximating ship structural weldments. The transient strain response was found to be pre-dominantly longitudinal but transverse strains were signifi-cant in the region of the welding arc. It was also found that residual strains correlated reasonably between similar experiments with a variation of the second stress deviator tensor invariant J2 representing the "state of stress" rather than by individual strain components. Several recommendations are made concerning continued experimental investigation aimed at further developmen