Topic 3

Design principles of welded structures

Objectives
On completion of this topic, you should have:

(a) gained an understanding of the factors which influence the design of welded
structures;
(b) become familiar with basic fabrication types (solid-webbed, lattice, box, cellular,
stressed-skin construction);
(c) an awareness of the rules and standards governing the design of welded structures;

(d) reviewed examples of welded elements in various areas of application; and

(e) appreciated the design requirements for mechanised and automated fabrication,
access and tolerances.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
Readings

Prescribed text
Hicks, John, Welded Design: theory and practice, Woodhead Publishing Ltd, Cambridge,
UK.

This is available through the library website at the following url:

http://www.knovel.com/knovel2/Toc.jsp?BookID=827

Hicks, John, Welded Joint Design, 2nd ed, Woodhead Publishing Ltd, Cambridge, UK, pp
21-28, 32-34.

All references to the second are provided in pdf form. Note the potential point of
confusion of having the two references from the one author!

Shigley, J. E Standard handbook of machine design [electronic resource] 3rd ed. pp.
26.23-26.39.
This resource can be found on the internet via the library website.

Useful Web sites

www.Corusconstruction.com

Included on this site is a number of free publications (library) which give the standard
range of sections, cross-sectional dimensions and basic section properties.

www.steelconstruction.org

On this site is a copy of "Steel Bridges - A practical approach to design for efficient
fabrication and construction" by Hayward, Sadler and Tordoff

www.steelbiz.org

A wide range of books available for sale

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Notes

Introduction

An overview is given of the basic design principles, the rules and standards that need to
be satisfied for safe and serviceable welding to be carried out.

Design principles

A number of factors need to be taken into account to establish a sound basis for
structurally satisfactory welds to be produced:

– static and dynamic loading;

– choice of load factor (Limit State Design);

– choice of material;
– choice of consumables;

– need for heat treatment;

– residual stresses;
– distortion;

– choice of butt welds;

– choice of fillet welds;
– compound welds;

– categories;
– quality control;
– assessment of strength;

– in-plane and out-of-plane loading;

– fatigue; and
– fracture.

These points are covered in more details throughout the Notes.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 Welding of steels

Arc welding of steels needs careful planning and an appreciation of possible defects. The
aim is to bond two pieces of metal, so the process requires the melting of the surfaces to
be joined, and the addition of material from an electrode. The mixing of these materials
enables metallurgical continuity to be attained.

The arc is usually shielded by an inert gas so as to prevent reaction of the molten material
from reacting with atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen.

Several factors are of significance in this welding process that affect the quality of the final
weld, formed. Here the quality refers to the cracking that can occur in welds, unless care
or precautions are taken. These cracks may occur irrespective of the sophistication of the
design calculations made.

A designer needs to be aware of the types of cracking that can occur:

– Hydrogen cracking: If the rate of cooling is high the heat affected zone experiences
Hicks, Welded
Design
a hardness depending on the hardenability of the steel. This hardenability, in turn, is
dependent on the chemical composition of the steel.
pp. 116-118

Calister The carbon equivalent is used as a measure of the hardenability of the steel, and
pp. 647-648 this should be kept within bounds. Carbon and carbon-manganese steels can absorb
hydrogen, and when the steel is hardened hydrogen cannot be absorbed easily.
High internal stresses are set up, and these can cause cracking to occur. There are
several precautions that need to be observed to avoid this problem.
– Hot cracking: If the steel contains impurities (in particular sulphur) they will often
concentrate in the last bit of liquid to solidify which is on the weld centreline. This
forms an area of weakness which can cause a crack due to the shrinkage stresses
imposed by cooling.
Hot cracking can be avoided by controlling the sulphur content in steels and by
controlling the depth to width ratio of the weld geometry.
– Lamellar tearing: Cracking can be caused by low ductility in the ‘through thickness’
direction of a plate-like element. The effect is due to the possible inclusions that
remain in the steel after rolling operations and naturally are located at the centre of
the element thickness. Transverse stresses or load paths in this situation are
therefore to be avoided in design, unless special assessment is undertaken.

Restraint at joints can also cause high transverse stresses, leading to lamellar
tearing.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 All types of cracking are affected by the choice of steel and the welding procedure, but the
designer can reduce the possibility of cracking by being aware of the phenomena and
BSEN
reviewing previous cases where they have occurred. (BS EN 1011-2: Recommendations
1011-2:2001
for welding of metallic materials – Arc welding of ferritic steels)

An interesting case study is provided by the Kings Bridge failure in Melbourne in 1962. A
low-alloy high strength steel was used, but inexperience led to a succession of events that
caused the plate girders of the bridge to collapse by brittle fracture. The steel had a high
carbon equivalent, and consequently the steel was low in notch ductility, toe cracks were
present in the fillet welds at the cover plate terminations, inadequate preheating of the
steel occurred during the welding process, electrodes were inadequately preheated, and
inadequate inspection occurred in the fabrication shop.

Consequently, under dynamic load, the toe cracks grew in size by fatigue and reached a
critical size, whereupon brittle fracture occurred in the flanges of some of the plate girders.
The fractures occurred at the terminations of the cover plates. These welds were the last
to be formed and were heavily restrained by the side fillet welds, and, perhaps, were
considered to be welds of secondary importance, leading to a lack of due care.
(Royal Commission Report on the Failure of Kings Bridge, Melbourne, 1965)

SAQ 1: Describe the possible physical defects and consequences caused by

fillet welds transverse to the direction of tensile stresses in plates.

Basic fabrication types

Broad categories of welded structures and components can be listed as follows:

– lattice trusses;

– solid web beams;

– castellated beams;

– cellular beams;

– plate girders;

– box columns;

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 – pressure vessels; and

– pipework.

SAQ 2: Sketch the layouts of five of the structure types listed above, and discuss
some of their advantages and disadvantages.

Welding terms and definitions

See also BS 499-1 Welding terms and symbols

Hicks, Welded
Joint Design
2nd ed. Welds
pp. 21-28
Basically there are two types of weld: the fillet weld and the butt weld. These simple welds
will cover most structural welding situations. Both types can occur in single or double-sided
form. The butt weld can be made square, single or double-bevel groove, single or double-
V groove, single or double-J groove or single or double-U groove.

Joints

The adjoining members may be positioned in various ways. Typically, there can be a
simple butt joint, a tee joint, a corner joint, a lap joint, or an edge joint. However, other joint
configurations are possible.

Completed welded joint

Some terminology associated with completed welded joint refers to the parent metal, the
weld metal, and the heat affected zone. Whether butt or fillet weld, each has toes where
the weld meets the parent metal at the surface. Each weld has a weld root, which can be
defined as the zone on the side of the first run furthest from the welder. The weld face can
be plane, convex or concave.

Size of the welds

In the case of fillet weld design, the size of the weld is either the leg length or the throat
thickness. It needs to be clear which is being specified.

In the case of butt welds, the size is determined by the throat thickness.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
In both cases the effective throat thickness is used for design, so inspection is needed to
ensure that the designer’s requirements are being met.

Tolerances and precautions

A designer must be aware of the practical limitations placed on welding components.

Some points are:
– for a fillet weld the gap between parts to be joined must not affect the design throat
thickness;

– the fillet weld size at external corners need to be carefully sized, as melting of the
corner of the outstanding plate may occur, and the weld may not be of the desired
size; and

– stiffeners for plate girders (under dynamic loading) should not be welded
transversely on to the tensile flange, due to the danger of toe cracks causing
transverse cracks in the flange plates. Also, the stiffeners should be coped so that
cross welding does not occur, leading to a potentially dangerous local triaxial tensile
stress condition being developed in the weld.

Weld preparations

Butt welds

While the design of a butt weld is straightforward from a calculation point of view for a
designer, the specification of the end plate preparation requires a review of the many
alternatives available.

In many cases the designer may not be aware of the capabilities of the fabricator.
Communication is therefore most desirable in order to avoid what may turn out to be costly
mistakes. The designer must be aware of the alternative edge preparations available for
butt welds. These preparations include:

– open square butt weld, together with a backing plate;

– single V weld requires a small nose to be left after machining. Alternatively, a

backing strip is needed;

– use of J and U shaped edge preparations to reduce amount of weld metal required;
and

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
– the volume of weld metal and consequently the amount of distortion can be reduced
if double cutting of the edges is undertaken. For example, double bevel, or double U
cutting are useful.

Fillet welds

Generally, no edge plate preparation is needed for fillet welds. Sometimes the weld shape
must change due to the elements being joined. For example, the joining of circular or
rectangular hollow sections at an angle to each other will require the weld shape to
change.

Residual welding stresses

The welding process involves the melting in a weld of partly filler metal and partly parent
metal. The nearby metal, not welded, reaches high temperatures. When this hot metal
cools it tends to contract longitudinally, which is resisted by the rest of the member.
Consequently, a pattern of longitudinal stresses is established. These stresses consist of
tensile stresses in the weld, at the yield stress, balanced by the compressive stresses,
when spread over the areas of action. The residual stresses form a self-balancing set of
internal forces. Intermittent welds cause lower shrinkage forces than continuous welds of
the same size.

Flame cutting will also induce tensile stresses at the cut edge, but the importance
decreases as the thickness of the plates being joined increases. The heat input from
cutting is less than that from a single-pass weld, therefore the importance of flame cutting
is small. However, for multi-pass welds the opposite may be true.

If a flame-cut edge is left unwelded, the zone of residual tension should be taken into
account. If the edge is trimmed by machining, then no further consideration is necessary.

Weld category and electrode classification

Weld category

The British Standards do not categorise welds in respect of the performance requirement.
The design rules are specified in the general standard or one covering the particular
application. The details of weld inspection requirements for general structures are given in
BS5950-2 Annex A

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 Electrode classification
Table 10 of BS5950 – 1 gives the yield strength, tensile strength and elongation for three
standard classes 35, 42 and 50. These numbers refer to their respective yield strengths of
355, 420 and 500 N/mm2. Also all welding consumables should conform to the relevant
standard specified in BS5950 – 2.

SAQ 3: Will an increase in weld size or length overcome the presence of weld
defects, such as underbead cracking or intermittent undercutting?

Rules and standards

Hicks, Welded For any safe and serviceable structure the design, fabrication and erection must be carried
Design.
out to a minimum standard of workmanship. Consequently, Rules and Standards are
Section 8.2,8.3
established that specify these minimum standards. A table has been included in Topic 2
identifying some of these standards. It needs to be highlighted that Limit States Design is
used for strength limit states in steel structures design, so that load factors are used in
addition to capacity reduction factors for the relevant design resistances. A clear distinction
needs to be made between Limit States Design and the older Allowable Stress Design.

Overview of economics of fabrication shop procedures

The following points should be noted and investigated for design if economical welded
structures are to be produced:

– simplicity, and repetition, even if more material in the elements to be joined is used;
– weld volume;

– accessibility;
– erection; and
– inspection.

The designer should follow the rules suggested below in order to meet the above
requirements:

– design with welding in mind;

– do not use oversize welds;

– do not increase the need for welding just to reduce mass of the elements of the

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 structure;
– keep number of elements to be joined as small as possible;

– keep distortion considerations in mind;

– consult with fabricator for best welding process;
– try to maximise the amount of shop welding;

– use fillet welds where possible;

– use full penetration butt weld only when necessary;
– adequate clearance for the welding operations is necessary;

– downhand welding is to be preferred;

– reduce the number of joints to be made;
– use standardised joint details where possible;

– consider sub-assemblies for fabrication;

– detail work so as to minimise amount of shop manipulation; and
– avoid difficult joint welding procedures where possible.

SAQ 4: Sketch some detailing faults that lead to poor accessibility, and show
how these faults can be overcome. (Hint: Hicks, Welded Design)

Erection and construction of steelwork

It needs to be recognised that the designer can influence the overall cost of erection by
choice of the structural design detail. The capacity and cost of a crane is determined by
the weight of the heaviest piece to be lifted. Perhaps the size of the pieces to be lifted can
be so designed that there is no large variation in the heavier pieces. More economical
hiring of a crane can then follow.

While construction requires lifting of pieces into position, it is then necessary to effect
connections. Bolting is the usual field method, attention being given to high strength
friction grip bolting or, perhaps, snug-tight high-strength bolts. However, there are cases
where field welding is necessary. In such situations, then, to make the presence of on-site
welding equipment economic, other joint configurations should be considered for welding
rather than being bolted.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.
 SAQ 5: List the defects that can cause failure of a large steel fabrication. Discuss
means by which these failures can be avoided. (Hint: Hicks, Welded
Design)

Welded connection layouts

In building work, built-up sections are sometimes used, in addition to the standard rolled
Hicks, Welded
Joint Design
sections. Partial penetration butt welds or fillet welds may be satisfactory for building up
2nd ed. such sections. Joints between beams and columns, except for the conditions mentioned
pp. 32-34 above, will usually involve some shop welding with field bolting to complete the
connection. The figures in Hicks 2nd ed. (attached), illustrate the conventional layouts that
such joints take.

Summary
An overview of the types of structures involving welding has been presented. Then a
review has been presented of the factors that influence weld design. The factors include
the type of weld, the selection of welding consumables, the selection of welding
categories, and the specification of welding details.

A brief overview of welding design, covering various types of structures, has been given.

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© University of Wollongong 2001. Cranfield University 2008/2009. All rights reserved.