Effects of Welding Residual Stresses on High Tensile Steel Plate Ultimate Strength: Nonlinear Finite Element Method Investigations

The primary objective of the present paper is to examine the effects of welding residual stresses on ultimate strength of high tensile steel plates under axial compression in terms of their magnitude and pattern. The ANSYS nonlinear finite element method is employed for the purpose. The secondary objective of the present paper is to study a nonlinear finite element method modeling technique for welded plate structures with residual stresses. Three levels of residual stresses, namely slight, average and severe levels are considered. As another important parameter of influence on the plate ultimate strength, the plate thickness is also varied in the numerical computations to examine their role and trend. Important insights and conclusions developed from the present study are documented.