Residual Stresses in Large Scale Structures Welded at Low Ambient Temperatures

Abstract

Prefabricated components during final assembling on site may be exposed to ambient temperatures below freezing point. Thus high cooling rates induce local hardening and can, however, affect distortion and residual stresses. These effects are investigated here for large-scale specimens in a climatic chamber simulating different possible ambient temperatures (down to-10 °C). Hereby experimentally obtained welding distortions and residual stresses are compared to numerical welding simulations.