Comparison of Different Residual Stress Models of FSW Butt Joints for Thin Aluminum Alloy Plates

Abstract

At present, the main methods used to predict welding residual stresses are the three dimensional thermo-elastic-plastic FEA method and the inherent method.Many learners had simulated the residual stresses of FSW used the thermo -elastic-plastic FEA method which was proved to be time consuming and not very effective. The inherent strain method neglects the whole welding process, and predicts distortion using an elastic finite element analysis by applying the inherent strains on the structure. In this paper,the inherent strains are firstly obtained for an flat butt-joint of aluminum alloy through experiments and three dimensional thermo-elastic-plastic FEA. Computational and experimental results showed that the inherent strain method could predict welding distortion with acceptable accuracy and greatly reduced running time when comparing to the thermo-elastic-plastic FEA method.