This paper presents a comparative study of theoretical and experimental thermal fields as well as residual stresses on butt welded joints. The thermal field and residual stresses were numerically modelled by the finite element method and compared to the experimentally determined data obtained by infrared thermography and tensometry measurements. The welding conditions were similar to the simulation conditions used in finite element analysis. The finite element analysis was carried out in two steps. A non-linear transient thermal analysis was conducted first to obtain the global temperature history generated during the welding process. A stress analysis was then developed with the temperatures obtained from the thermal analysis used as loadings in the structural analysis. The errors were calculated and the error curves were plotted, comparing the experimentally determined values to those resulted from modelling.
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