Journal of Manufacturing Processes 61 (2021) 507–517

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

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Measurement and analysis of welding deformation in arc welded lap joints

of thin steel sheets with different material properties
Yong Liu a, b, *, Ninshu Ma b, **, Fenggui Lu c, Hongyuan Fang a
a
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China
b
Joining and Welding Research Institute, Osaka University, 11–1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-0047, Japan
c
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Laser Processing and Modification, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
200240, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Welding deformation in arc welded lap joints of thin steel plates with different strengths were quantitatively
Welding deformation investigated by experimental measurement and numerical simulation. Four welding deformation components
Arc welded lap joint were discussed in detail. There is a relatively uniform distribution of transverse shrinkage along the welding
Numerical simulation
direction and a largest angular distortion in the middle transverse section. The bottom plate of the lap joint
Material properties.
presents larger longitudinal shrinkage and deflection obviously in comparison with top plate. Two lap joints with
different strength were discussed comparatively. It is observed that the DP590 lap joint with higher strength has
larger angular distortion and smaller shrinkage and deflection in the longitudinal direction, and no obvious
variation in transverse shrinkage. Correlation between material properties and welding deformation of arc
welded lap joints were investigated by parametrical numerical simulations. The results show that the welding
deformation varies considerably among various steels with different yield strength (YS) and coefficient of
thermal expansion (CTE) although they have the same heat input.

1. Introduction plates was significantly affected by heat input based on experimental

Welding process has been widely used in manufacturing industries
such as automotive and shipbuilding. This process inevitably produces
welding residual stresses and deformation due to localized heating with
an energy-concentrated heat source, which are usually harmful to wel­
ded components. Generally, excessive deformation caused by welding
process seriously affects the dimensional accuracy and bearing capacity
of welded structures, which always requires additional correcting work
and thus resulting in schedule delays and high costs [1]. So the inves­
tigation of welding deformation is the basis for understanding defor­
mation mechanism and developing control schemes.
Both experimental measurements and numerical simulations have
been extensively used to study deformation due to various welding
processes. Heinze et al. [2] studied the welding deformation behavior of
a arc welded butt joint with tack welding experimentally and numeri­
cally. They believed that considering tack welding in the welding
simulation could improve the prediction of welding-induced distortion.
Guo et al. [3] stated that the buckling deformation in bead-on welded
measurement using digital image correlation (DIC) technology. The
deformation components of butt-welded dissimilar sheet plates [4] and
mismatched joints [5] were also studied. Besides the investigation of
welding residual deformation, transient deformation behaviors during
welding were also analyzed based on both measurement and simulation
[6–8]. Dhingra and Murphy [6] measured the transient deformation
behavior during welding in bead-on plates and T-joints with several
linear displacement sensors. They also highlighted the importance of
outside restraints for welding deformation. Okano et al. [7] studied the
generation of exclusive distortion caused by welding in thin steel plates
with careful measurement and numerical simulation. It was observed
that the longitudinal deflection had a contribution to the generation of
angular deformation in the presence of buckling mode. The deformation
behavior of header components with circumferential fillet welds was
also investigated [8]. Furthermore, various measures to control welding
distortions were evaluated by experiments and numerical simulation.
Schenk et al. [9] and Ma et al. [10] quantitatively studied the welding
induced deformation of T-joints and bead-on welded plates under

* Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China
** Corresponding authors at: Joining and Welding Research Institute, Osaka University, 11–1 Mihogaoka, Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-0047, Japan
E-mail addresses: hitliuyong@163.com (Y. Liu), ma.ninshu@jwri.osaka-u.ac.jp (N. Ma).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2020.11.038
Received 29 September 2020; Received in revised form 15 November 2020; Accepted 27 November 2020
Available online 17 December 2020
1526-6125/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Y. Liu et al.
different constraint conditions, respectively. The effect of jig constraint
was analyzed in detail with numerical simulation. Suman et al. [11] and
Zubairuddin et al. [12] reported that preheating could reduce the
welding distortion in single-pass and multi-pass welding. Cozzolino
et al. [13] simulated the fusion welding and post-weld rolling process
and confirmed that the welding residual stresses and distortion in butt
joints could be reduced by rolling method. Zhang et al. [14] studied the
angular deformation in HSLA thick-plate T-joints at different constraint
conditions and proposed a presetting method to control the deforma­
tion. Thus, the welding deformation behaviors and mechanism have
been well understood and various process details could also be repro­
duced in welding calculations. However, these research efforts have
mainly concentrated on the deformation behaviors caused by welding
process in bead-on plates, butt-welded plates and fillet joints. Limited
studies such as those by Huang et al. [15] have discussed welding
deformation behaviors in lap joints although they have been extensively
used in the industrial field. In this work [15], a modified iterative
method (ISM) was proposed and used in the welding simulation of arc
welded lap joints. This work mainly discussed the modified ISM for
welding simulation without further analysis of welding distortion in lap
joints.
Arc welded lap joint has been widely employed to assemble auto­
motive bodies due to its continuous weld, which could provide increased
bearing capacity in both stiffness and strength if compared to the
discrete weld in resistance spot welding (RSW) process [16]. And there
is a growing demand for the materials with high strength and thin
thickness under the requirement of light weight and energy efficiency in
the automotive industry. Based on the welding deformation behaviors
discussed by Wang [17], unstable deformation and even buckling was
more likely to occur when a thin plate with higher tensile strength was
used. The problem of out-of-plane deformation induced by welding
process becomes more prominent in this context. The welding defor­
mation behaviors in lap joints and its influence by material properties of
thin sheet plates require further analysis.
In this study, two lap joints of thin steel sheets with different strength
(DP590 and SPCC steel) were welded by the metal active gas (MAG)
welding process with same heat input. The welding deformation com­
ponents were measured with a 3D coordinate measuring machine.
Corresponding FE models for the two arc welded lap joints were
developed to simulate the welding process. A good correlation was ob­
tained between simulated results and measurements. Furthermore,
parametric calculations were performed to investigate the welding
deformation in the lap joints with various YS and CTE, and their
deformation mechanism was discussed in detail.
2. Experimental study
2.1. Welding experiment
As shown in Fig. 1, two thin sheet plates with the same dimensions
(300 mm × 100 mm×3.2 mm) were assembled as a lap joint by tack
Fig. 1. Schematic of the arc welded lap joints.
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Journal of Manufacturing Processes 61 (2021) 507–517
welding, and the lap length was 20 mm. The number of tack welds was
three and the size was approximately 10 mm in length. To reduce the
influence of initial stresses, all the plates were performed stress relief
heat treatment at 600℃ for 2 h, and the surface of welding plates near
the welding position was polished prior to tack welding. A metal active
gas (MAG) welding process was employed. The shielding gas was 80 %
Ar and 20 % CO2. The welding parameters were 150A for current, 20 V
for arc voltage, 55 cm/min for welding speed and 20 L/min for gas flow.
Two sets of lap joints with different strength were welded under
unrestricted conditions with same welding parameters. The base metals
were DP590 (hot rolled high strength steel for automotive application)
and SPCC (cold rolled mild steel), and their corresponding welding filler
materials were YM-60A and YM-24S. The specimens of lap joints after
welding are showed in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respectively.
2.2. Welding-induced deformation
As shown in Fig. 2, several through-holes with a radius of 1.5 mm
were machined on both top and bottom plates before welding for the
measurement of welding-induced deformation. Three dimensional co­
ordinates of these holes were measured after assembly and after cooling,
respectively, so that the deformation components induced by welding
process could be calculated by the difference between the two sets of
coordinates.
In this study, four typical components of welding deformation
including transverse shrinkage, longitudinal shrinkage, angular defor­
mation and longitudinal deflection in arc welded lap joints as shown in
Fig. 3 were evaluated with measured coordinates data. As shown in
Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 5(a), the in-plane deformation component transverse
shrinkage and the out-of-plane deformation component angular distor­
tion were estimated at transverse sections of X = 10, 50, 150, 250, 290
mm, and Fig. 6(a) and Fig. 7(a) indicates that the longitudinal shrinkage
and deflection are measured at longitudinal sections of Y=-70, -30, 0,
30, 90 mm.
As shown in Fig. 4, there are relatively uniform distribution of
transverse shrinkage along the weld line because the welding heat input
remains unchanged during the whole welding process, which could
generate relatively constant plastic strain in the transverse direction.
And no significant difference was observed between DP590 and SPCC
lap joints.
Fig. 5 shows that the angular deformation of the middle cross-section
presents larger value than that of the two side sections along the weld,
which is probably due to the effect of longitudinal deflection on angular
deformation. A large upward deflection of the bottom plate (longitudi­
nal section 5 in Fig. 7) can be observed, which inevitably contributes to
enlarging the angular deformation of the middle cross-section. By
contrast, DP590 lap joint has greater angular distortion than SPCC lap
joint due to the variation in strength. It is probably because the DP590
lap joint has a larger difference of transverse plastic strain in the
thickness direction.
As shown in Fig. 6, there are much larger longitudinal shrinkage in
the section close to the welding line than that of sections away from
welding line. And the values of top and bottom plate at the same dis­
tance from the weld line are clearly asymmetric with a larger shrinkage
in bottom plate and a lower one in top plate. This phenomenon differs
from that of butt welded plate [10]. The reason seems to be that large
longitudinal deflection of the bottom plate has a contribution to its
shrinkage value. Compared with DP590 steel, SPCC lap joint presents a
much larger longitudinal shrinkage.
Fig. 7 clearly indicates that the bottom plate gives a larger longitu­
dinal deflection compared with the top plate in both cases. It indicates
that the edge of bottom plate (section 5) has the largest deflection value
and the edge of top plate (section 1) has the minimum one. And inter­
estingly, the deflection of SPCC lap joint is greater than that of DP590 in
all the longitudinal sections, which largely indicates that the SPCC lap
joint has much larger shrinkage force than DP590 from the point of view
Y. Liu et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 61 (2021) 507–517

Fig. 2. Specimens of arc welded lap joints: (a) 3.2 mm DP590 plates, (b) 3.2 mm SPCC plates.

Fig. 3. Sketch of welding deformation components in arc welded lap joints: (a) transverse shrinkage; (b) angular deformation; (c) longitudinal shrinkage; (d)
longitudinal deflection.

Fig. 4. Transverse shrinkage of DP590 and SPCC lap joints: (a) transverse sections; (b) transverse shrinkage.

of deformation mechanism.
3. Welding numerical simulation for lap joints
3.1. Finite element model and material properties
Welding simulation is very complicated, several assumptions are
stated firstly: (a) Modelling of welding process is a multi-physics prob­
lem, the process of fluid flow, weld solidification and phase trans­
formations during welding was not included in the current model. (b) A
weakly coupled thermomechanical model was assumed. That is to say
the effect of welding deformation on welding thermal field was
neglected in this study. (c) Isotropic hardening was assumed for the
materials in welding models. (d) Gravity was assumed to have no effect
on welding deformation in small size welded components.
In the present study, three dimensional thermomechanical FE model
based on Abaqus was employed to calculate the welding heat transfer
process and welding deformation. The finite element model and
boundary conditions for lap welded plate are shown in Fig. 8. Fine mesh
was used near the weld line with a minimum size of 0.8 mm due to high
temperature and stress gradients, and a mesh transition technology was
adopted for computational efficiency. The FE model had a total of
28,788 elements and 36,934 nodes. Six freedoms of three points were
fixed to ensure that the model could be deformed freely without rigid

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Fig. 5. Angular deformation of DP590 and SPCC lap joints: (a) transverse sections; (b) angular deformation.

Fig. 6. Longitudinal shrinkage of DP590 and SPCC lap joints: (a) longitudinal sections; (b) longitudinal shrinkage.

Fig. 7. Longitudinal deflection of DP590 and SPCC lap joints: (a) longitudinal sections; (b) longitudinal deflection.

Fig. 8. Finite element model and boundary conditions of arc welded lap joint.

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motion during the whole welding simulation.
The temperature-dependent physical and mechanical properties of
DP590 and SPCC steel were presented in Fig. 9. And the weld fillers were
given the same material properties as the corresponding base metal due
to the similarity in chemical composition and strength. Material prop­
erties between adjacent temperature points were obtained using a linear
interpolation method, and they were given the same value as at 1000℃
when the temperature was above 1000℃.
3.2. Welding heat transfer simulation
A sequential coupled thermal mechanical simulation was carried out
to investigate the welding deformation behavior of the two lap joints
with different strength. A simplified heat source model with uniform
volume heat generation rate was employed in this study. Thermal effi­
ciency of the welding arc was set to 0.9. The ambient temperature and
initial temperature of the lap joints were both set to 20 ℃. The film
coefficient of all the surfaces due to convection was given 24 W/(m2℃)
[1], while the film coefficient of the back surface was assumed to be
enlarged 10 times considering the heat dissipation from the metal
platform in the back.
The transient thermal filed at 20 s from welding beginning was
drawn in Fig. 10(a), from which it can be seen that there is large tem­
perature gradient near the heat source, while a relatively uniform dis­
tribution with lower temperature can be observed in the rear region. The
peak temperature of each node during welding was recorded as a field
variable FV1 to verify the fusion zone shape and penetration depth.
Based on the measured results, the weld width was about 5 mm and the
maximum penetration depth in the bottom plate was around 0.8 mm,
which was well reproduced by FE simulation as shown in Fig. 10(b).
3.3. Mechanical analysis in welding simulation
The total strain increment could be expressed as the sum of several
components in the mechanical analysis for welding simulation [18–20]:
Δεtotal = Δεe + Δεp + Δεt + Δεtr
where Δεe , Δεp , Δεt , andΔεtr are the elastic strain increment, plastic
strain increment, thermal strain increment and strain increment due to
volume change in solid-state phase transformation (SSPT), respectively.
The last item could be neglected in the absence of low temperature SSPT
as discussed by Deng [19].
The strain-displacement relationship is described by the Lagrangian
formula, and the Green-Lagrange strain on component form can be
written as
( )
1 ∂ui ∂uj ∂uk ∂uk
εij = + + (2)
2 ∂Xj ∂Xi ∂Xi ∂Xj
Fig. 9. Temperature-dependent material properties of DP590 and SPCC steel: (a) physical properties; (b) mechanical properties.
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 61 (2021) 507–517
In the case of small deformation, the quadratic terms in the Green-
Lagrange strain tensor can be ignored, but for the large deformation
problem, the nonlinear terms must be included, which is usually called
geometric nonlinearity [15]. Large strain theory was used in the present
model because there was a high probability of a large and even unstable
deformation during welding simulation. The contact behavior between
the top and bottom plates was included in current model to prevent
nodal penetration. and the friction was neglected.
4. Comparison of simulated results and measurements
The simulated out-of-plane deformation of DP590 and SPCC lap
joints after welding were compared in Fig. 11. It can be observed that the
two lap joints both have a saddle-shaped deformation and the bottom
plate presents much larger out-of-plane deformation compared with top
plate. Since the arc welded lap joints have a fillet weld, the top plate had
a fully penetration along the edge while the bottom plate was partially
penetrated, which was deformed much like a bead-on welded plate. In
this case, a saddle-shaped deformation could be easily generated in arc
welded lap joints.
Fig. 12 shows the comparison of welding deformation components
between numerical simulation and measurements. It shows that the
simulated results generally agree well with measured data both in the
cases of DP590 and SPCC lap joints. A convex distortion along the weld
line could be found in Fig. 12(a), which shows that the longitudinal
deflection of SPCC lap joint is larger than that of DP590. However, the
deformation mode along the middle transverse direction presents a
concave shape as shown in Fig. 12(b), and the DP590 lap joint gives a
slightly larger angular distortion. The discrepancies in welding distor­
tion between the two lap joints could be well predicted in numerical
results as discussed in section 2.2.
In order to evaluate the effect of geometric nonlinearity in current
models, the out-of-plane deformation of SPCC lap joint with and without
considering the nonlinear term in Eqs. (3) was compared in Fig. 13. It
clearly indicates that the FE model with small strain theory has given
much smaller deformation. Therefore, large strain theory is recom­
(1) mended for the welding simulation of thin-walled structures.
5. Parametric studies
5.1. Simulation cases with varying material properties
Materials with various strengths have been widely used in compo­
nent manufacturing for different mechanical performance. In this study,
the deformation behaviors of arc welded lap joints with varying yield
strengths (YS) and coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) were inves­
tigated by means of parametric analysis since the two parameters have a
dominant influence on welding simulated results [21].
For comparison purpose, two parameters rYS and rCTE were defined
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Fig. 10. Temperature distribution: (a) thermal field at 20 s from welding beginning; (b) peak temperature on cross section during the whole welding process.
Fig. 11. The simulated out-of-plane deformation in arc welded lap joints (scale: ×5): (a) SPCC; (b)DP590.
by the following equations :
σY (T)
rYS =
σY,r (T)
α(T)
rCTE =
αr (T)
where σY (T) and α(T) are the YS and CTE of the steel to be studied,
σ Y,r (T) and αr (T) are the YS and CTE of DP590 steel as a reference.
As shown in Table 1, totally 12 cases of welding numerical simula­
tion were performed to evaluate the welding deformation behaviors
among different steels with a wide range of YS and CTE. The minimum
rYS is 0.3 corresponding to the mild steel, and the maximum value is 2.5
considering the application of ultra-high strength steel in manufacturing
industry. The range of rCTE is from 0.75 to 1.4 covering common steels
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 61 (2021) 507–517
with small CTE and austenitic stainless steel with large CTE. The FE
models for parametric studies have the same geometry and heat input,
(3) and the remaining material parameters were assumed to be the same
with DP590 steel.
The welding deformation components, transverse shrinkage, angular
(4) deformation and tendon force on the middle transverse section and
longitudinal deflection along the weld line were investigated. All the
deformation components were extracted from the mid-plane of the plate
thickness to avoid the difference in deformation between the weld and
back surface. As shown in Fig. 14, a net transverse shrinkage was used to
evaluate the true transverse contraction in current model since it was
usually influenced by angular deformation. In order to compare the
longitudinal shrinkage in arc welded lap joints easily, the tendon force
[22] was used in this study, which could be expressed as follows:
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Fig. 12. Comparison of welding deformation between numerical simulation and measurements: (a) longitudinal deflection along weld line; (b) transverse deflection
along middle section; (c) transverse shrinkage; (d) longitudinal shrinkage.

Fig. 13. Out-of-plane deformation of SPCC lap joint (unit: mm, deformation scale: 5 times).

∫
direction, which provides a underlying mechanism for longitudinal
F= Eεpx dydz (5)
deformation of welded joints. A larger tendon force generally corre­
sponds to a larger longitudinal deformation [19].
Where E is Young’s modulus; εpx is the residual plastic strain in longi­ To make the comparison easier, the transverse shrinkage S(rYS ),
tudinal direction. Tendon force indicates the shrinkage force in welding angular distortion θ(rYS ), tendon force F(rYS ) and longitudinal deflection

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Table 1 weld surface becomes larger as YS increases, which illustrates that the
Numerical cases of arc welded lap joints with various YS and CTE. bending strain has a growing trend, while the averaged shrinkage strain
Group Parameters Values Reference Total through the plate thickness keeps relatively unchanged with the
material cases increasing YS.
A rYS 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1, 1.5, 2, DP590 7 As shown in Fig. 15(b), a remarkable decline can be seen in both
2.5 tendon force and longitudinal deflection with the increasing of rYS at
B rCTE 0.75, 0.85, 1, 1.2, 1.4 DP590 5 lower YS and the decline becomes less significant as rYS increases to 1.
Based on fully restrained one-bar model as discussed by Li et al. [23],
which is also called Satoh test [24], the critical heating temperature to
β(rYS ) in the cases of group A with various rYS were normalized by the generate residual plastic strain could be given by:
corresponding values (S0 , θ0 , F0 , β0 ) in DP590 lap joint, which can be
defined by Eqs. (6)–(9). The same goes for lap joints with different rCTE ΔTY = σY /αE (10)
in group B. And the residual plastic strain ε can be calculated by the following
p
x
S(rYS ) equation:
ns (rYS ) = (6)
S0 εp = − αΔTY = − σY /E (11)
θ(rYS ) Eqs. (10) indicates that high strength material tends to produce
nθ (rYS ) = (7)
θ0 narrower plastic zone since it needs higher ΔTY , while it tends to
generate larger value of plastic strain based on Eqs. (11). The contour
nf (rYS ) =
F(rYS )
(8) plots of longitudinal plastic strain in the cases of rYS = 1 and rYS = 2
F0 were also extracted from the FE models for a clearer comparison as
shown in Fig. 17. The results show that the lap joint with lower YS has a
nβ (rYS ) =
β(rYS )
(9) much wider plastic zone than that with higher YS, although they have
β0 smaller values. In this way, larger tendon force could be developed to
If these normalized values are larger than 1.0, it means that the produce larger longitudinal deflection in the lap joint with lower YS.
evaluated steel have a larger welding deformation compared with Furthermore, the increased angular deformation in high strength lap
DP590 lap joint. Otherwise, it indicates that the welding deformation in joint could also improve the longitudinal bending stiffness to reduce the
the lap joint to be studied is smaller than the corresponding deformation deflection in longitudinal direction. It should be noted that Eqs. (10)–
component in DP590 lap joint. (11) based on simplified Satoh test is a basic concept for understanding
welding mechanics, where the temperature dependent material prop­
erties and work hardening are not taken into account. Thus, Satoh test
5.2. Welding deformation with different YS
with real material properties was performed to evaluate the plastic
strain history during heating and cooling process. It is found that the
For the lap joints with various YS in group A, the normalized trans­
variation in ΔTY and residual plastic strain with different rYS obtained
verse shrinkage ns (rYS ), the normalized angular deformation nθ (rYS ), the
from Satoh test presented the same rule as in Eqs.(10)~(11) (see sup­
normalized tendon force nf (rYS ) and the normalized longitudinal
plementary material).
deflection nβ (rYS ) are shown in Fig. 15. Significant changes in welding
deformation can be observed at lower YS, while there is no obvious
change as YS increases to a certain value. Furthermore, the transverse 5.3. Welding deformation with different CTE
deformation plotted in Fig. 15(a) is less sensitive to the variation of YS in
comparison with longitudinal deformation in Fig. 15(b). In the cases of group B with various CTE, the normalized transverse
In Fig. 15(a), it shows that the transverse shrinkage remains almost shrinkage ns (rCTE ), the normalized angular deformation nθ (rCTE ), the
constant when rYS is greater than 1, and it has a decreasing trend when normalized tendon force nf (rCTE ) and the normalized longitudinal
rYS becomes less than 1. The angular deformation is slightly increased as deflection nβ (rCTE ) are shown in Fig. 18(a)-(c). It seems that the welding
rYS increases. To understand the variation of transverse deformation deformation in arc welded lap joints is more sensitive to rCTE than rYS .
with various YS, the transverse plastic strain distributed in the thickness And all the normalized welding deformation components are increased
of bottom plate was extracted from the FE model since they have a almost linearly with rCTE increasing.
dominant contribution to the transverse deformation, which was shown The variations in transverse shrinkage and angular deformation with
in Fig. 16(a). It can seen that the transverse plastic strain on the back different CTE can also be explained by the transverse plastic strain
surface decreases with the increasing YS, while the plastic strain on the distributed in the plate thickness in Fig. 19(a), which indicates that the

Fig. 14. Sketch of the net transverse shrinkage in arc welded lap joint.

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Fig. 16. Plastic strain distributions on the middle cross section in arc welded
lap joints with various YS: (a) transverse plastic strain distributed in the plate
thickness; (b) longitudinal plastic strain distributed in Y direction.

Fig. 15. Normalized welding deformation components with various YS: (a)
6. Conclusions
transverse shrinkage and angular deformation; (b) tendon force and longitu­
dinal deflection.
In the present study, welding deformation components in arc welded
lap joints of thin steel sheets with different strength were quantitatively
transverse plastic strain on weld surface and back surface are both
studied by experimental measurement and numerical simulation.
enlarged with rCTE increasing, but the increase on weld surface is more
Parametric calculations were performed with a wide range of YS and
prominent. Consequently, the distribution characteristics of the trans­
CTE, and their variation in welding deformation was analyzed in detail.
verse plastic strain determine the generation of larger contraction strain
The main conclusions are as follows:
and bending strain in the lap joints with larger CTE.
Fig. 18(b) shows that both the normalized tendon force and longi­
(1) The welding induced deformation simulated by FE models agreed
tudinal deflection are increased linearly as the factor rCTE increases,
well with experimental measurements both in DP590 and SPCC
which can also be analyzed by Eqs.(10) and Eqs. (11). Meanwhile, the
lap joint. And the larger strain theory was recommended in the
longitudinal plastic strain distributed on middle cross section (Fig. 19b)
welding simulation of thin-walled structures.
also suggests that there are not only wider plastic zone but also larger
(2) A saddle-shaped distortion was produced in the both lap joints.
plastic strain in longitudinal direction with the increasing CTE, which
And the DP590 lap joint with higher strength has larger angular
will inevitably improve the tendon force in lap joints to produce larger
deformation and smaller longitudinal shrinkage and deflection in
longitudinal deflection. Same as in section 5.2, Satoh test with real
comparison with SPCC lap joint.
material properties was conducted to evaluate the plastic strain history
(3) The lap joints with higher YS tend to generate larger transverse
among various rCTE during heating and cooling process. It shows that the
shrinkage and angular distortion and smaller tendon force and
variation in ΔTY with different rCTE obtained from Satoh test presented
longitudinal deflection, while the welding distortion keeps rela­
the same rule as in Eqs.(10), and the residual plastic strain showed an
tively unchanged when the YS increases to a certain value.
increasing trend as rCTE increases, which could not be captured by Eqs.
(4) All the normalized welding deformation components are
(11) but was consistent with the variation of residual plastic strain in
increased almost linearly with rCTE increasing since there are both
Fig. 19(b) (see supplementary material).
wider plastic zone and larger plastic strain in the lap joints with

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Fig. 17. Contour plot of longitudinal plastic strain on the middle cross section: (a) rYS = 2; (b) rYS = 1.

Fig. 19. Plastic strain distributions on the middle cross section in arc welded
lap joints with various CTE: (a) transverse plastic strain distributed in the
thickness; (b) longitudinal plastic strain distributed in Y direction.

Fig. 18. Normalized welding deformation components with various CTE: (a) interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
transverse shrinkage and angular deformation; (b) tendon force and longitu­ the work reported in this paper.
dinal deflection.

higher CTE, and the bending strain through plate thickness is also
enlarged.
(5) Compared with YS, the welding deformation of lap joints is more
sensitive to the value of CTE.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from China
Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201806120148) and Project to Create
Research & Educational Hubs for Innovative Manufacturing in Asia.</
GS2> Author Yong Liu appreciates the acceptance as an
<GS2>international joint researcher at Joining and Welding Research
Institute, Osaka University.

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Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the
online version, at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2020.11.038.
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