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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