REDUCING BUCKLING DISTORTION IN WELDED STRUCTURES USING THERMAL TENSIONING

摘要

Welding induced buckling distortion is a common problem for fabricating thin-walled structures in industry. Although it usually will not significantly reduce the strength of welded structures, buckling distortion severely affects their integrity and dimensional accuracy. Many methods have been developed to prevent the buckling distortion. Most of these methods, however, are undesirable due to the requirement of changing original product and process designs and involving complicated fixtures. This paper reports a study on reducing welding-induced buckling distortion using the thermal tensioning method. A finite element model was developed to simulate the welding and preheating temperature effects in a box-beam production process. A critical preheating temperature was identified and applied in production to suppress the buckling distortion. Experimental results have shown that the welding induced buckling distortion can be effectively reduced with a preheating temperature above the critical threshold.