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International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect 56
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International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 58
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journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ 60
international-journal-of-naval-architecture-and-ocean-engineering/ 61
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1 Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual 66
2 67
3 stress evaluation during high tensile thick plate butt welding 68
4 69
5 Q6,1 Hong Zhou a, Qingya Zhang b, Bin Yi b, Jiangchao Wang b, * 70
6 a 71
School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212003, China
7 b 72
School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China
8 73
9 74
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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
11 76
12 Article history: 77
Two High Tensile Strength Steel (EH47) plates with thickness of 70 mm were butt-welded together by
13 Received 14 March 2019 multi-pass Submerged Arc Welding (SAW), also the hardness and welding residual stress were investi- 78
14 Received in revised form gated experimentally. Based on Thermal-Elastic-Plastic Finite Element (TEP FE) computation, the thermal 79
15 3 August 2019
cycles during entire welding process were obtained, and the HAZ hardness of multi-pass butt welded 80
Accepted 19 September 2019
16 joint was computed by the hardenability algorithm with considering microstructure evolution. Good 81
Available online xxx
17 agreement of HAZ hardness between the measurement and computational result is observed. The 82
18 evolution of each phase was drawn to clarify the influence mechanism of thermal cycle on HAZ hardness. 83
Keywords:
19 Welding residual stress was predicted with considering mechanical response, which was dominantly
HAZ hardness prediction 84
20 Welding residual stress determined by last cap welds through analyzing its formation process.
85
TEP FE computation © 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Society of Naval Architects of Korea. This is an
21 86
Microstructure evolution open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
22 87
23 88
24 89
25 90
26 1. Introduction mechanical response and welding residuals stress. Radaj intro- 91
27 duced the basic theory for welding thermal analysis, and reviewed 92
28 Recently, the EH47 ultra-thickness plate with its excellent per- the progress of computational approach for welding temperature 93
29 formance such as high strength and nice toughness, is increasingly field (Radaj, 2012). Considering the phase transformation during 94
30 applied to fabricate the container ship with more than 10,000 TEU welding process, the welding thermal cycle can induce austenite 95
31 (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit). Meanwhile, welding process with grain growth during heating process and then transform to its 96
32 higher production efficiency and joining quality is commonly used decomposing products such as Bainite and Martensite during 97
33 for joining this mentioned high tensile strength steel EH47, how- cooling process. The microstructure will obviously influence the 98
34 ever welding with thermal cycle often induce microstructure evo- hardness and performance property, and even change the magni- 99
35 lution in HAZ and generate welding residual stress, which both tude of welding residual stress due to the volume modification (Xue 100
36 have serious impact on the mechanical performance of weld et al., 2017). At present, there are two methods to predict the 101
37 components (Genchev et al., 2017; Webster and Ezeilo, 2001; James microstructure evolution during welding and investigate the HAZ 102
38 et al., 2007; Gharibshahiyan et al., 2011). In detail, HAZ hardness is a hardness. One is the experimental measurement such as Brinell and 103
39 potential factor for crack initiation and other problems, and the Vicker, which is not suitable for engineering operation when 104
40 tensile welding residual stress would lead to fatigue fracture of considering the production efficiency. The other is numerical 105
41 welded joint under the external load. Therefore, it is receiving a simulation method, in which the HAZ hardness value can be 106
42 remarkable attention to examine the HAZ hardness and welding computed. Some researchers have already been dedicated to 107
43 residual stress of butt welded joint in fabrication of thick plate with developing a general algorithm to predict the hardness magnitude 108
44 high tensile strength steel. of HAZ (Ion et al., 1984; Ion and Easterling, 2000; Kirkaldy and 109
45 Welding induced thermal cycle will not only influence the phase Venugopalan, 1983). Kasuya et al. (1995) developed a highly accu- 110
46 transformation and microstructure evolution, but also the rate prediction formula for the maximum hardness of the HAZ for 111
47 understanding the properties of welded joint, and application ex- 112
48 amples were also achieved. Lina Yu (Yu et al., 2011) developed an 113
49 effective neural network system to predict the HAZ hardness dur- 114
50 * Corresponding author.
ing bead-on-plate welding. 115
51 E-mail address: WangJiangchaocn@gmail.com (J. Wang).
Meanwhile, welding residual stress is closely related to the 116
Peer review under responsibility of Society of Naval Architects of Korea.
52 117
53 118
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
54 2092-6782/© 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Society of Naval Architects of Korea. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license 119
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
 IJNAOE283_proof ■ 27 September 2019 ■ 2/11

2 H. Zhou et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Fig. 1. Continuous cooling transformation diagram of HAZ.
24 89
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26 welding thermal cycle, which can be measured by Neutron 91
27 Diffraction method, Contour Method and Drilling-Hole Method and 92
28 so on (Qiang et al., 2018). The Neutron Diffraction method 93
29 (Rangaswamy et al., 2005) which is one of the diffraction methods, 94
30 can be employed to accurately measure the near-surface residual 95
31 stress, but the experimental cost is extremely high in terms of this 96
32 method. The Drilling-Hole method is much cheaper and probably 97
33 the most widely used method for residual stress measurement. 98
Fig. 2. Microstructure evolution of HAZ during one thermal cycle.
34 Nowadays, Contour Method (Prime, 2000; Withers et al., 2008; 99
35 Pagliaro et al., 2010) is widely applied for welding residual stress 100
36 measurement by cutting a specimen into two pieces and measuring 2. Numerical simulation methods 101
37 surface height contour on the free surfaces created by the cut, and 102
38 average contour determines the deformations caused by residual In this study, the numerical simulation mainly consists of TEP FE 103
39 stress redistribution and is used to compute residual stresses method and HAZ hardness prediction method. The welding tran- 104
40 through an elastic finite element model of the specimen. Mean- sient temperature obtained by TEP FE method will be applied for 105
41 while, with the popularity of computer application for numerical welding residual stress analysis and HAZ hardness prediction as 106
42 simulation, FE methods were developed to predict welding residual initial load. Both of TEP FE and HAZ hardness prediction methods 107
43 stress (Deng and Kiyoshima, 2011; Hwang et al., 2016; Wan et al., were introduced as following. 108
44 2017). With the consideration of the effect of temperature 109
45 changes on material thermal physical properties, TEP FE method 110
46 has been widely applied for welding field (Murakawa et al., 2015; 2.1. TEP FE method 111
47 Ma, 2015; Ma et al., 2015b), in which the welding transient tem- 112
48 perature was applied for stress analysis as initial load. The TEP FE method with an uncoupled thermal-mechanical 113
49 From the above investigations, hardness in HAZ and welding formulation procedure, is extensively applied for welding field, 114
50 residual stress induced by welding have obtained remarkable which mainly composed of two sections: a) the thermal analysis 115
51 achievements, but there are fewer reports on computing the HAZ process and b) the stress analysis process. Because the former has 116
52 hardness of butt welded joint with multi-pass welding. In this decisive effect on the latter while the latter has only a small in- 117
53 paper, two EH47 plates will be butt-welded together by multi-pass fluence on the former, thermal-mechanical behavior during weld- 118
54 SAW, and then hardness and welding residual stress were experi- ing is examined by using uncoupled thermal-mechanical 119
55 mentally measured. Thermal-elastic-plastic FE analysis was carried formulation (Ma et al., 2015a; Wang et al., 2014). During thermal 120
56 out to compute the thermal cycles, and predict the evolution analysis, the 3D welded joint FE model is established firstly using 121
57 progress of microstructure, HAZ hardness and welding residual the solid element model according to the dimension of welded 122
58 stress. With the modifying the hardenability algorithm based on joint. The heat source model is considered to be an important 123
59 microstructure evolution, the computed and measured HAZ hard- aspect, and the double-ellipsoidal volumetric model is employed to 124
60 ness distribution and magnitude were examined and has a good simulate the welding transient temperature (Goldak and Akhlaghi, 125
61 agreement with each other. 2005). The heat flux is determined by the welding current, welding 126
62 voltage and welding speed. Besides considering the moving heat 127
63 source, heat loss due to convection and radiation should also be 128
64 taken into account in the thermal analysis. Similar to the thermal 129
65 analysis, the temperature-dependent thermal properties such as 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
 IJNAOE283_proof ■ 27 September 2019 ■ 3/11

H. Zhou et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

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2 TemperatureðMSÞ ¼ 561:0  ð474:0C þ 35:0MnÞ 67
(6)
3  17:0Ni  ð17:0Cr þ 21:0MoÞ 68
4 69
5 where the units are all degree centigrade ( C), the chemical sym- 70
6 bols are their mass percentages. A1 and A3 mean the temperature 71
7 for Pearlite and Ferrite transformations, TS means the temperature 72
8 for precipitate dissolution, TP means melting point temperature, BS 73
9 and MS mean the temperature for Austenite decomposition to 74
10 Bainite and Martensite. 75
11 Therefore, the computed thermal cycles of solid elements model 76
12 can be employed to distinguish the HAZ during FE analysis, the 77
13 points whose maximal temperature is higher than A1 point tem- 78
14 perature (about 727  C), can be considered as HAZ due to the 79
15 occurrence of solid phase transformation and microstructure 80
16 alternation. In detail, the computed welding thermal cycle was 81
17 used to predict HAZ hardness basing on the microstructure evo- 82
Fig. 3. SAW with multi-pass for thick plate butt welding. lution method. According to the continuous cooling transformation
18 83
19 diagram of the HAZ during cooling procedure as displayed in Fig. 1, 84
20 the Austenite decomposition products during cooling process are 85
thermal conductivity, specific heat, and density are used. The
21 dominantly determined by the cooling rate. 86
welding temperature histories can also applied for the prediction of
22 With the different cooling rate (v) as shown curve A, B, C and D, 87
HAZ hardness by considering Austenite growth and decomposition,
23 different Austenite transformation products formed. In detail, a fast 88
and computing the types of their volume fractions.
24 cooling rate shown by curve A led to the formation of Martensite, 89
The mechanical analysis is conducted using the welding tem-
25 and as the cooling rate reduced as shown by curve B, C, D, other 90
perature histories by thermal analysis as the input load. The same
26 transformation products such as Ferrite, Pearlite, Bainite and 91
FE model used in thermal analysis is employed here. For mechan-
27 Martensite were formed. Therefore, the HAZ hardness could be 92
ical analysis, the boundary constraint conditions are used to pre-
28 calculated when the hardness and volume fraction of various 93
vent rigid motion, and temperature-dependent material properties
29 transformation products above were known. The calculation for- 94
such as Poisson's ratio, Yield strength, Yung's modulus and Linear
30 mula was determined as Eq. (7). 95
expansion coefficient are mainly considered.
31 96
32 Htotal ¼ HM XM þ HB XB þ HAFP XAFP (7) 97
2.2. Microstructure evolution theory of HAZ in low carbon steel
33 98
where HM , HB and HAFP represent the hardness of Martensite,
34 Generally, welded joint can be divided into three portions: 99
Bainite and Austenite-Ferrite-Pearlite, respectively; they are the
35 welded zone, heat affected zone (HAZ) and base material zone. HAZ 100
functions of alloy element content and cooling rate, given as
36 can be defined as the portion of base material which was not 101
following:
37 melted during welding, but whose microstructure and mechanical 102
38 properties were altered by the welding heating. Based on the 103
HM ¼ 127 þ 949C þ 27Si þ 11Mn þ 8Ni þ 16Cr þ 21 log10 v
39 chemical compositions of examined material, the critical temper- 104
40 atures for solid phase transformation, as well as microstructure 105
41 HB ¼  323 þ 185C þ 330Si þ 153Mn þ 65Ni þ Cr þ 191Mo 106
evolution, can be calculated as follows:
42 þ ð89 þ 53c  55Si  22Mn  10Ni  20Cr  33MoÞlog10 v 107
43 TemperatureðA1Þ ¼ 723:0  10:7Mn  16:9Ni þ 29:0Si 108
(1)
44 þ 16:9Cr þ 290:0As þ 6:4W 109
45 HAFP ¼ 42 þ 223C þ 53Si þ 30Mn þ 12:6Ni þ 7Cr þ 19Mo 110
46 þ ð10  19Si þ 4Ni þ 8Cr þ 130VÞlog10 v 111
TemperatureðA3Þ ¼ 910:0  203:0C2  15:2Ni
47 112
þ44:7Si þ 104:0V þ 31:5Mo þ 13:1W (2)
48 , 113
30:0Mn  11:0Cr  20:0Cu þ 700:0P
49 v¼ð800500 t Þ 1 3600; t8 5 ¼q=2plv ð1=500T  1=800T Þ
= 114
þ400:0Al þ 120:0As þ 400:0Ti 8 =
=
0 0
50 5 115
51 116
52 TemperatureðTSÞ ¼ 1527:0  181:356C  273:0 (3) 117
53 T0 is the ambient or preheat temperature ( C); l is the thermal 118
54 TemperatureðTPÞ ¼ 1810:0  90:0C  273:0 (4) conductivity (J=m$sec C); q/v is the heat input (J/m); v is the 119
55 cooling rate. 120
56 TemperatureðBSÞ ¼ 656:0  ð58:0C þ 35:0MnÞ XM , XB and XAFP are the volume fractions of Martensite, Bainite 121
(5)
57  ð75:0Si þ 15:0NiÞ  ð34:0Cr þ 41:0MoÞ and Austenite-Ferrite-Pearlite. All of them are controlled by the 122
58 following equation. 123
59 124
60 dx=dt ¼ Br ðG; TÞX m ð1  XÞn 125
61 Table 1 126
62 Chemical compositions of EH47 (%). where, X is the volume fraction of the Austenite decomposition 127
63 C Si Mn Al Ni Cr Cu Mo Ti
product; Br is an effective rate coefficient; G is the austenite grain 128
64 size index number; T is the temperature in K; t is the time in sec- 129
0.06 0.14 1.51 1.034 0.5 0.18 0.38 0.122 0.012
65 onds; m & n are semi-empirical coefficients. 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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14 Fig. 4. Groove type, weld forming and position of strain gauges. 79
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17 Table 2 82
Welding parameters and heat input.
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19 Welding location Current (A) Voltage (V) Welding Speed (mm/sec) Heat input (J/mm) 84
20 Root welding 650e750 28e30 5.8e6.17 2,949.8e3,879.3 85
21 Filling welding 650e750 28e30 5.8e7.5 2,426.7e3,879.3 86
22 Cap welding 650e750 28e30 5.8e6.17 2,949.8e3,879.3 87
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25 Table 3 90
26 Material thermal physical properties. 91
27 Temperature ( C) Specific heat (J/kg$  C) Thermal conductivity (J/mm2$ s) Heat transfer coefficient (W/mm2$ K) 92
28 20 0.0595 0.469 5.7E-6
93
29 200 0.0578 0.523 5.7E-6 94
30 400 0.0456 0.595 5.7E-6 95
31 600 0.0368 0.741 5.7E-6 96
800 0.03 0.96 5.7E-6
32 97
1000 0.0276 0.64 5.7E-6
33 1400 0.0297 0.661 5.7E-6 98
34 99
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36 Table 4
101
37 Material mechanical properties. 102
38 103
Temperature ( C) Poisson's ratio Elastic modulus (GPa) Yield strength (GPa) Linear expansion coefficient (104/ C)
39 104
40 0 0.281 e e 0.12 105
20 0.281 212 0.47 0.12
41 106
200 0.292 200 0.43 0.135
42 300 0.292 198 0.39 0.135 107
43 350 0.292 192 0.36 0.135 108
44 400 0.3 187 0.32 0.14 109
45 450 0.3 185 0.27 0.14 110
500 0.3 182 0.24 0.14
46 550 0.3 165 0.2 0.14
111
47 600 0.31 135 0.16 0.147 112
48 650 0.31 102 0.1 0.147 113
49 700 0.31 92 0.07 0.147 114
750 0.31 78 0.04 0.147
50 115
800 0.31 46 0.04 0.148
51 850 0.31 23 0.04 0.148 116
52 900 0.31 11 0.002 0.135 117
53 1000 0.31 9.5 0.002 0.135 118
54 1100 0.31 7.0 4E-4 0.135 119
1200 0.31 5.1 4E-4 0.135
55 1400 0.31 2.1 4E-4 0.14
120
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58 123
Moreover, the Austenite decomposing products on cooling and Easterling, 2000; Kirkaldy and Venugopalan, 1983; Goldak and
59 124
process were determined by their own formation start tempera- Akhlaghi, 2005). The critical temperatures divided the welding
60 125
ture. Specifically speaking, the upper critical temperature (A3) was thermal cycle into eight regions, as was illustrated in Fig. 2. The
61 126
the Ferrite start temperature and the lower critical temperature microstructure evolution in HAZ during one thermal cycle was
62 127
(A1) was the Pearlite start temperature; BS was the Bainite start composed of two sections: 1) Austenization on heating process and
63 128
temperature and MS was the Martensite start temperature. All of 2) Austenite decomposition during cooling process.
64 129
them were the functions of carbon and alloy element content (Ion On the foundation of the microstructure evolution, the
65 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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30 Fig. 6. Drilling and measurement of release strain. 95
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Fig. 7. Hardness measurement equipment and procedure.
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64 Fig. 8. Solid elements FE model and weld pass sequences. 129
65 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
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34 Fig. 9. Welding temperature field: a) transient temperature, b) cross-section temperature, c) appearance of molten pool. 99
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Fig. 10. Comparison of computed and measured hardness.
54 119
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56 hardenability algorithm was modified to predict the HAZ hardness Therefore, the total hardness will be given as Eq. (8) 121
57 of butt welded joint obtained by multi-pass welding. To improve 122
58 computation efficiency, the welding thermal cycle with the 123
X
n
59 maximum temperature higher than A1 will be taken into account. Htotal ¼ ðHMi XMi þ HBi XBi Þ þ HAFP XAFP (8) 124
60 In addition, the HAZ microstructure is still a mixture of Austenite- i¼1 125
61 Ferrite-Pearlite on cooling process when the cooling rate is zero. 126
62 For multi-pass welding, the retained Austenite-Ferrite-Pearlite where, n is the number of considered welding thermal cycle. 127
63 would continue getting Austenization on heating process and As a whole, the examined point can be distinguished as HAZ 128
64 transforming to its decomposing products during cooling process. when its maximal temperature is higher than A1 point temperature 129
65 (about 727  C), which will transform to be Austenite due to solid 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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H. Zhou et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx 7

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30 Fig. 11. Phase fraction of examined point after multi-pass welding. 95
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phase transformation during heating. Then, the Austenite decom- listed in Tables 3e4.
34 99
position to Bainite, Martensite, Ferrite or Pearlite will occur during
35 100
cooling with the proposed microstructure evolution approach. 3.2. Experimental measurement
36 101
Because of the different hardness and percentage of each solid
37 102
phase or microstructure, the hardness of examined point can be After welding, the welding residual stress and HAZ microhard-
38 103
eventually evaluated with Eq. (8). ness of butt welded joint were respectively measured. Blind-Hole
39 104
40 method was used to measure the welding residual stress distri- 105
41 3. Material and experimental procedures bution and the positions of strain gauges were shown in Fig. 5, the 106
42 processes for drilling and measurement of release strain were also 107
43 3.1. Material and welding process conducted as shown in Fig. 6. 108
44 Meanwhile, The macroscopic metallography was carried out as 109
45 In this study, two thick plates with the dimension of shown in Fig. 7(a) and HAZ microhardness of butt welded joint was 110
46 400*200*70 mm due to the requirement of Welding Procedure also measured by Micro-Vickers Sclerometers as shown in Fig. 7(b). 111
47 Specification (WPS) from Chinese Classification Society, were butt- 112
48 welded together by multi-pass SAW as shown in Fig. 3. The test 4. Computational analysis 113
49 specimen was tack welded and then placed on the platform 114
50 without any clamping or fixture. Later, SAW equipment with large Solid element was used to establish FE model of butt welded 115
51 welding heat input as shown in Fig. 3 was practiced by welder for joint for TEP FE analysis, which contained 30,957 nodes and 28,900 116
52 thick plate butt welding. The base material was EH47 and its elements as shown in Fig. 8. According to the test specimen 117
53 chemical composition was shown in Table 1. The detailed groove experiment, Fig. 8a also showed the boundary condition to prevent 118
54 type was showed in Fig. 4. In detail, the butt welded joint was rigid body motion for stress analysis and the detailed weld se- 119
55 composed of 12 welding passes in upper region and 16 welding quences were displayed in Fig. 8b. 120
56 passes in lower region. The tack welding before the preheat treat- At first, the welding temperature field and thermal cycles should 121
57 ment of 80  C was firstly carried out. During the process of welding, be considered to study the HAZ hardness and welding residual 122
58 the interlayer temperature was also taken into account as about stress characteristics, while the temperature dependent material 123
59 200  C. Moreover, two short plates were used as start-arc and end- properties as summarized in Tables 3e4 was considered. In this 124
60 arc plate respectively, as were displayed in Fig. 4. The weld forming study, the initial temperature was assumed to be ambient tem- 125
61 of EH47 was illustrated in Fig. 4. perature (about 20  C), and body heat source with uniform power 126
62 In this study, the filler metal was Y-CMS with the diameter of density Q (w/m3: welding arc energy/volume of body heat source) 127
63 4.8 mm and the NB-55 was used as SAW flux. The detailed welding was employed to represent heating behavior of welding arc, while 128
64 conditions were listed in Table 2. For TEP FE method, the material heat losses due to heat convection and radiation were also taken 129
65 temperature dependent thermal and mechanical properties were into account with a combined boundary flux q (w/m2) on all 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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8 H. Zhou et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx

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50 Fig. 12. Phase fracture evolution of region 1 and 2. 115
51 116
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53 external surfaces. Moreover, the welding conditions as summarized butt welded joint with multipass welding by the above mentioned 118
54 in Table 2 were applied and the arc heating efficiency SAW was microstructure evolution approach. With the computed thermal 119
55 assumed to 0.9. Fig. 9 showed the welding temperature field with cycles during welding, solid phase transformation and micro- 120
56 the welding arc passing about 1/2 position of the welding line, structure evolution can be examined and represented. Based on the 121
57 including welding transient temperature, cross-section appearance hardness and percentage of each solid phase as well as micro- 122
58 of transient temperature, and weld pool appearance of the butt structure, the hardness of examined points can be eventually 123
59 welded joint. evaluated. The computed and measured results were illustrated 124
60 and discussed below. 125
61 4.1. HAZ hardness prediction of thick plate butt welded joint The HAZ hardness can be estimated according to the definition 126
62 Eq. (8). Since the hardness of each micro-phase was almost con- 127
63 HAZ hardness of butt welded joint significantly influences the stant during one thermal cycle, the accuracy of predicted HAZ 128
64 mechanical property of weld components. In this study, the hard- hardness may be mainly depended on the volume fraction of each 129
65 enability algorithm was modified to predict the HAZ hardness of micro-phase. To compare the predicted and measured value, some 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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Fig. 13. Transverse residual stress after each pass welding: a) main weld, b) opposite weld.
45 110
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47 specified regions were shown in Fig. 10b and the computed and under one thermal cycle with fast cooling during welding as ex- 112
48 measured results of HAZ hardness were illustrated in Fig. 10a. A amples while Austenite transformation and decomposition both 113
49 good correlation was found between the predicted and the occurred, the relation between temperature and fraction of 114
50 measured values. During the cooling process, there was a relatively different phases also can be demonstrated in Fig. 12. It can be seen 115
51 sharp change in the hardness distribution where the large amounts that with the temperature increasing during heating stage, Ferrite 116
52 of Martensite and Bainite formed. Unlike region 2 and 5, the total and Pearlite totally transformed to Austenite and their fractures 117
53 hardness at region 1, 3 and 4 contained HB2XB2 and HM2XM2, which will become to be zero; Austenite will decompose to other phase 118
54 means that the retained Austenite-Ferrite-Pearlite got austeniza- and eventually disappear during the cooling stage. 119
55 tion fully and then transforming into Martensite and Bainite which To further analyze the underlying cause of the computed HAZ 120
56 would not transform into Austenite under next considered welding hardness, the maximum temperature and cooling rate of region 121
57 thermal cycle. The total HAZ hardness at region 1, 3 and 4 was 1e5 in HAZ were discussed. The HAZ of butt welded joint was like 122
58 obviously smaller than that at region 2 and 5 because of it mainly band-shape near the fusion line, and its width was very small. 123
59 consisting of Austenite-Ferrite-Pearlite. Therefore, the total HAZ What's more, the maximum temperature of each region was above 124
60 hardness was sensitive to the volume fraction of micro-phases, 1000  C, making the microstructure get austenization fully on 125
61 especially the Martensite as shown in Fig. 11. heating, while peak temperature at region 2 and region 5 was above 126
62 Based on the maximal temperature and cooling rate, some 1200  C, increasing the volume fraction of Martensite formed on 127
63 points in HAZ were selected to exactly examine. Taking examined cooling process. Thus, the HAZ hardness at these two regions was 128
64 region 1 under two thermal cycle with slow cooling and region 2 increased obviously and the maximum welding temperature above 129
65 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
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43 Fig. 14. Longitudinal residual stress after each pass welding: a) main weld, b) opposite weld. 108
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46 1200  C can sharply change the computed HAZ hardness the opposite weld, the higher tensile stress in weld center dropped 111
47 distribution. rapidly from the weld center to the plate edge as displayed in 112
48 Fig. 13b. In addition, the distribution tendency of the computed 113
49 4.2. Welding residual stress of thick plate butt welded joint transverse residual stress after fully welding agreed well with 114
50 measured results. 115
51 Since the welding residual stress would deteriorate the me- Fig. 14(aeb) showed the longitudinal residual stress after each 116
52 chanical property of thick plate butt welded joint, the welding re- welding pass. When neglecting the influences of start/end welding, 117
53 sidual stress characteristic induced by multi-pass welding was the longitudinal residual stress value was almost constant, which 118
54 investigated in this study and the results were displayed and dis- was generated due to the contraction of the welded components 119
55 cussed below. during the cooling process. For main weld, the tensile stress 120
56 The Blind-Hole method was employed to measure the welding induced by cap welds was much bigger than that by filling welds as 121
57 residual stress of butt welded joint when the temperature cools shown in Fig. 14a. However, the tensile stress after each opposite 122
58 down to ambient temperature. The position of predicted values in welding pass was almost constant, which was obviously smaller 123
59 the butt welded joint was displayed in Fig. 5. The transverse re- than that after cap welding in main weld as shown in Fig. 14b. 124
60 sidual stress could be obtained from Line 1 and the longitudinal Therefore, it can be concluded that the longitudinal residual stress 125
61 residual stress could be achieved from Line 2 as indicated in Fig. 8. of butt welded joint was mainly depended on the last cap welds. 126
62 Fig. 13(aeb) showed the transverse residual stress after each In addition, the Blind-Hole method limited the measured 127
63 welding pass. For the main weld, originally acting as compressive welding residual stress to 60% of the magnitude of the material 128
64 stress in weld center, the transverse residual stress then turned to yield strength (ASTM standard E 837-08, 2008), and measurement 129
65 tensile stress towards the plate edge as illustrated in Fig. 13a. For accuracy was affected by many impacts, such as plastic deformation 130

Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004
 IJNAOE283_proof ■ 27 September 2019 ■ 11/11

H. Zhou et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering xxx (xxxx) xxx 11

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Please cite this article as: Zhou, H et al., Hardness prediction based on microstructure evolution and residual stress evaluation during high
tensile thick plate butt welding, International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2019.09.004