A wide range of welding and surface treatment processes involve the use of a heat source which is moving at a constant speed over the component. The numerical simulation of such processes implies a transient analysis using a very refined mesh in order to follow properly the path of the heat source. The 3D-mesh size can be very large if one consider the welds length or the heat-treated surface size in industrial components. To reduce the computational time to acceptable values, several techniques have been investigated. The first type is to use analytical methods such as Rosenthal equations. The second type of solutions consists in performing a transient analysis using adaptive meshing. But, for a large proportion of the involved processes, practical experience demonstrates the existence of quasi steady state conditions over the major part of the heat source path. Numerical algorithms have therefore been developed to directly compute the steady temperature, metallurgical phase proportion and stress distributions. This paper gives a general overview of the different numerical methods used to simulate welding and surface treatment processes with a special emphasis on the steady state calculation. The benefits and limitations of each of them are discussed and applications are presented.
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