Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

Eects of temperature-dependent material properties

on welding simulation
X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao *

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA

Received 22 August 2001; accepted 11 January 2002

Abstract
Detailed three-dimensional nonlinear thermal and thermo-mechanical analyses are carried out using the nite ele-
ment welding simulation codeWELDSIM [Chao et al., In: Advances in Computational & Engineering Science, vol.
II, Tech Science Press: Paledale, USA: 2000. pp. 12061211]. The objective is to investigate the eect of each tem-
perature-dependent material property on the transient temperature, residual stress and distortion in computational
simulation of welding process. Welding of an aluminum plate using three sets of material properties, namely, properties
that are functions of temperature, room temperature values, and average values over the entire temperature history in
welding, are considered in the simulation.
Results show that (a) the thermal conductivity has certain eect on the distribution of transient temperature elds
during welding, (b) the yield stress and Youngs Modulus have signicant and small eects, respectively, on the residual
stress and distortion, after welding, and (c) except for the yield stress, using material properties at the room temperature
gives reasonable predictions for the transient temperature elds, residual stress and distortion. Since high temperature
material properties are either dicult to obtain or do not exist for many materials, an engineering approach is proposed
based on the results in this study. The engineering approach suggests using simplied properties constituted by a piece-
wise linear function with temperature for the yield stress and constant room-temperature values of all other properties
for computational weld simulation. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Welding simulation; Material property; Residual stress; Welding distortion; Thermal modeling; Three dimension; Finite
element analysis

1. Introduction distortion are permanently produced in the welded

Many metallic structures in industry are assembled
through some kind of welding process which is com-
posed of heating, melting and solidication using a heat
source such as arc, laser, torch or electron beam. The
highly localized transient heat and strongly nonlinear
temperature elds in both heating and cooling processes
cause nonuniform thermal expansion and contraction,
and thus result in plastic deformation in the weld and
surrounding areas. As a result, residual stress, strain and
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +1-803-777-0106.
E-mail address: chao@sc.edu (Y.J. Chao).
structures. High tensile residual stresses are known to
promote fracture and fatigue, while compressive residual
stresses may induce undesired, and often unpredictable,
global or local buckling during or after the welding. It is
particularly evident with large and thin panels, as used
in the construction of automobile bodies and ships.
These adversely aect the fabrication, assembly, and
service life of the structures. Therefore, prediction and
control of residual stresses and distortion from the
welding process are extremely important in the ship-
building and automotive industry.
Over the past 20 years, research has been conducted
enabling the use of advanced analytical procedures to
more accurately simulate the welding process. Due to

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PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 7 9 4 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 4 0 - 8
968 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
the complexity of the physical processes involved in
welding, however, simple mathematical solutions cannot
address the practical manufacturing processes. Fur-
thermore, it is also impossible for any experimental
technique to obtain a complete mapping of the residual
stress and distortion distribution in a general welded
structure. Computational simulation thus plays an in-
dispensable role in the integrity analysis of such welded
structures. Hibbitt and Marcal [8] marked the rst step
in applying a two-dimensional (2D) nite element
analysis (FEA) to predict residual stresses in a weld-
ment. Due to computational and cost limitations, FEA
simulation eorts during the 70s and 80s were focused
on simplied 2D geometries [9,14]. In reality, the ther-
mal and stressstrain responses of all weldments are
three-dimensional (3D). With recent advancements in
computational power, FEA simulation of transient
temperature and residual stresses in welding has gradu-
ally become feasible. Recently, 3D welding simulation
was conducted using commercial FEA software, as re-
ported by Tekriwal and [18,19], Brown and Song [1],
Michaleris and DeBiccari [15], Dong et al. [6], and Chao
et al. [4].
In a computational simulation of welding process,
material modeling is one of the key problems. Recently,
Lindgren [10] gives a detailed review on this topic, which
includes the development of material constitutive rela-
tionships, material microstructures and material prop-
erties as functions of temperature. Most publications in
welding simulation adapted material properties that are
dependent on temperature. However, in practice com-
plete temperature-dependent material property data re-
quired for welding simulation are dicult to obtain,
especially at high temperatures. To circumvent this
problem, assumptions and simplications are often
proposed for welding simulation. Stanley and Chau
[17] rst explored eects of the temperature-dependent
properties on thermal stresses in cylinders. Free and
Go [7] assumed all material properties (except the yield
stress) remaining as the room temperature values to
model welding. Canas et al. [2] studies the inuence of
strain hardening and temperature-dependent properties
on the residual stresses. Ma et al. [13] simulated residual
stresses using constant material density, Poisson ratio
and thermal expansion coecient. Little and Kamtekar
[12] and Little et al. [11] presented the eect of various
thermal properties and weld eciency on transient
temperature during welding. Chen et al. [5] and Shi et al.
[16] numerically studied the eect of material properties
on the welding simulation using extrapolated material
properties at high temperature and using dierent cti-
tious data of material properties at high temperature
covering a bandwidth which includes the extrapolated
unknown data, respectively. These authors then con-
cluded that the unavailable material property data at
high temperature have almost no eects on the residual
stresses and distortion. To reduce computational time,
many numerical analyses often used a cut-o tempera-
ture above which no changes in the mechanical prop-
erties are accounted for. Tekriwal and Mazumder [19]
showed that the residual stresses from FEA have small
changes for carbon steels when the cut-o temperature
varied from 600 to 900 C, but the computational time is
signicantly dierent.
Although various assumptions and simplications
were applied in welding simulation, as cited in the
previous paragraph, the potential errors from these as-
sumptions and simplications to the transient tempera-
ture elds, residual stress and distortion are not assessed
and are uncertain [16]. To this end, the present paper
systematically investigates the errors associated with
each of the material properties in a welding simulation.
We performed detailed 3D thermal and thermo-
mechanical welding simulations for a 5052-H32 alumi-
num alloy by using three sets of material properties, i.e.
those at the room temperature, averaged over the tem-
perature history in the welding process, and as functions
of temperature. WELDSIM, a 3D FEA software de-
veloped at the University of South Carolina by the au-
thors, is used [4] in the simulation. By comparing the
results for the three cases, the eect of each temperature-
dependent material property on transient temperature,
residual stress and distortion is investigated.
Since high temperature material properties are either
dicult to obtain or do not exist for many materials, an
engineering approach is proposed based on the results in
this study. The engineering approach suggests using
simplied properties constituted by a piece-wise linear
function with temperature for the yield stress and con-
stant room-temperature values of all other properties for
computational weld simulation. It is shown that this
approach yields transient temperature elds, residual
stress and distortion with sucient accuracy, yet cir-
cumvents the diculty in nding and using exact high
temperature material properties.
2. Geometry and computational simulation
2.1. Geometry conguration
For convenience, the classical gas metal arc welding
(GMAW) experiment by Masubuchi [14] is modeled in
the present welding simulation. Fig. 1 shows the geom-
etry and welding conguration of the problem under
consideration. As shown in the gure, the moving torch
is applied on the longitudinal upper edge of the plate of
1220 mm long, 152.4 mm wide and 12.5 mm thick. The
plate is simply supported at both ends. Such a geometry
and arrangement are chosen to produce a complete set
of experimental data that include transient temperature,
 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
Fig. 1. Conguration of the welding plate (dimensions are in
millimeter).
residual stress, and distortion at various locations in the
plate. As such, it provides excellent information to val-
idate results from any computer simulation.
The material used in the welding was 5052-H32
aluminum alloy. Thermal and mechanical properties of
the material are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respec-
tively. Detailed experimental setup and procedures can
be found in Masubuchi [14]. Six single-direction strain
gages were used for measuring longitudinal strains. Four
thermocouples were also mounted on the plate at dis-
Fig. 2. Variation of material properties with temperature of
5052-H32 aluminum alloy (a) thermal properties, (b) mechan-
ical properties.
969
tances of 12.7, 38.1, 76.2 and 144.8 mm from the top, as
shown in Fig. 1, to record the temperature history. A
dial gage was used to measure the transient deection of
the beam at the lower, midpoint of the beam during
welding. After welding was completed and the plate
cooled to the room temperature, the longitudinal resid-
ual stresses along the middle section were determined
using rosette strain gages by sectioning the plate. The arc
traveling speed is 7.34 mm/s which yields a 166 s total
time of welding. The welding current is 260 A, and the
arc voltage is 23 V. A Gaussian distribution with an
eective arc radius of 6 mm and thermal eciency of
64.3% are used in the current computer simulation for
the heat ux applied to the plate.
2.2. Computational simulation
A half model in the thickness direction was used in
the computer simulation due to symmetry of the plate.
One layer of element is used in the FEA model, which
consists of 900 eight-node brick solid elements and 2020
nodes in both the heat transfer and the thermo-
mechanical analyses. The smallest element used in the
modeling is in the area of the weld and has the dimen-
sions of 12:2 mm
6 mm
6:25 mm. The nite ele-
ment mesh is the same as that shown in Fig. 2 of Chao
et al. [4] and yields results with sucient accuracy. It
should be mentioned that in a mesh sensitivity study [4]
a ner FEA mesh with 1800 elements and 3030 nodes
leads to almost identical results as the present FEA
mesh, but the computational time increased signi-
cantly.
An uncoupled thermal and thermo-mechanical anal-
ysis is adapted in this calculation. The thermal analysis
was performed rst and the transient temperature out-
puts from this analysis are saved for the subsequent
thermo-mechanical analysis. In the thermal analysis, the
transient temperature eld T is a function of time t and
the spatial coordinates x; y; z, and is determined by the
3D nonlinear heat transfer equation:
kT;ii Qint cqT_ 1
where k is the conductivity, Qint is the internal heat
source rate, c is the specic heat and q is the density of
materials. The comma (,) denotes partial dierentiation
with respect to a spatial coordinate, the dot ( denotes
dierentiation with respect to time t. Heat ux to the
system is input by a moving source on the boundary. To
consider heat convection and radiation on the plate
surfaces, the heat ux loss is evaluated by
qs bT  T0 eBT 4  T04 2
where T0 is the room temperature, b is the convection
coecient, e is the emissivity of the plate surfaces and
970 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
B 5:67
1012 W=cm2 C is the StefanBoltzmann
constant. In this calculation for the aluminum alloy,
b 30 W=m2 C and e 0:03. In addition, a latent heat
of fusion is taken as 400 J/g to consider the phase
transformation of the aluminum.
In the thermo-mechanical analysis, the plastic de-
formation of materials is assumed to obey the Mises
yield criterion and the associated ow rule. The rate
relationship between thermal stresses, rij , and strains, eij ,
is described by


1m m oa
e_ij r_ ij  r_ kk dij ksij a T  T0 T_
E E oT
3 welding xture to the residual stress and distortion.
where E is Youngs modulus, m is Poisson ratio, a is the
thermal expansion coecient. sij rij  1=3rkk dij are
the components of deviatoric stresses and k is the plastic
ow factor. k 0 for elastic deformation or re < rs , and
k > 0 for plastic deformation or re P rs , here rs is the
yield stress and re 3=2sij sij 1=2 is the Mises eective
stress. A cut-o temperature of 400 C (i.e. about 2=3 of
the aluminum melting temperature 607 C) is used in the
numerical calculations to reduce unnecessary computa-
tional time. All FEA computations are performed on
PCs by using WELDSIM [4]. To save computational
time without loss accuracy of results, dierent time steps
are used for the two analyses. The time step used in this
study is 0.1 s for the heat transfer analysis, and 1.0 s for
the stress-deformation analysis. As such, the CPU time
in a typical welding simulation is about 1.2 min for the
temperature computation, and 81.8 min for the stress
and deformation computation.
2.3. WELDSIMa WELDing SIMulation code
WELDSIM is a computer simulation software, de-
veloped at the University of South Carolina. The overall
structure of this software can be found in Chao et al. [4]
and Chao and Qi [3]. WELDSIM is a 3D, nonlinear
nite element computer code for the determination of
transient, as well as residual, temperature, stress, strain
and distortion of welded structures in a welding process.
Advanced features in the FEA code make WELDSIM
robust and computationally ecient. Its eciency has
been veried through comparisons of computed results
with experimental data (see [3,4]).
In general, in WELDSIM, a heat transfer analysis
and a subsequent thermo-mechanical analysis can be
run sequentially or in a sequentially coupled manner. A
moving heat source simulating the torch is modeled rst
to generate the temperature elds in the structure at
various time steps during the welding process, and then
the temperature history is used for the calculation of
thermal stress and displacement elds in the structure
during and after the welding process. The nite element
formulation and solver in WELDSIM follow the stan-
dard procedures in computational mechanics. Details
can be found in Chao and Qi [3]. Unique features in
welding implemented into the code include: moving heat
source model, complex heat input models for various
types of heat sources, latent heat for simulating melting,
dummy elements for simulating multi-pass welding, cut-
o temperature to increase the computation speed, ef-
fective weight factor for elastic to plastic transition,
exibility in convergence criterion for both the heat
transfer and stress analyses, both small and large de-
formation options for predicting distortion, and eect of
3. Eect of thermal properties on temperature simulation
This section reports the numerical results of transient
temperature eld for the three cases using the thermal
physical properties at room temperature, averaged over
temperature history and as functions of temperature. All
FEA results are compared with the experimental data
obtained by Masubuchi [14]. Accordingly, the eect of
various thermal properties on temperature simulation is
revealed and discussed.
3.1. Thermal modeling
The heat transfer equation (1) clearly indicates that
the material density q, specic heat c and thermal con-
ductivity k are three primary thermal physical properties
in the thermal analysis. To avoid interaction of these
parameters in the study, each parameter is taken as the
room temperature (RT) value, average value over
temperature history and the value as functions of tem-
perature, respectively, in the FEA computation. For
comparison, eight test cases as follows are considered in
our thermal modeling:
T1all three parameters q, c, and k are functions of
temperature, as shown in Fig. 2(a).
T2density q at RT, q q0 2:69 g/cm3 , c and k
are functions of temperature.
T3averaged density q q 2:64 g/cm3 , c and k
are functions of temperature.
T4specic heat c at RT, c c0 0:94 J=g C, q
and k are functions of temperature.
T5averaged specic heat c c 1:07 J=g C, q
and k are functions of temperature.
T6conductivity k at RT, k k0 1:67 W=cm C, q
and c are functions of temperature.
T7averaged conductivity k k 2:06 W=cm C, q
and c are functions of temperature.
T8all three parameters are taken as the RT values,
i.e. q q0 , c c0 and k k0 .
 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976 971

Since all thermal properties are functions of tem-

perature in Case T1, the FEA result of temperature is
referred to as the baseline or standard numerical solu-
tion. All other FEA results of temperature for Cases T2
T8 will be compared to that from Case T1, as well as the
test data, to evaluate the accuracy and error of simula-
tion results for each case.

3.2. Numerical results for temperature

Fig. 3 shows the transient temperature history for

various densities at four test points for the three cases
T1, T2 and T3. The four points are the locations of the
thermocouples at distances of 12.7, 38.1, 76.2 and 144.8
mm from the top of the beam, as shown in Fig. 1, and
named as #1, #2, #3 and #4, respectively, in Fig. 3. The Fig. 4. Eect of specic heat on the transient temperature at
experimentally measured temperature values at these four points. Using specic heat at the room temperature (Case
points obtained by Masubuchi [14] are also plotted in T4), average value (Case T5) and function of temperature (Case
the gure. Fig. 3 shows that the FEA results for Cases T1).
T1, T2 and T3 are identical to each other, and match
well with the test data. Therefore, it is concluded that a
constant material density value at room temperature can
be used in numerical simulation to obtain good tem-
perature results.
Fig. 4 shows the inuence of various specic heat on
the distribution of temperature at the four tested points
for cases T1, T4 and T5. It is seen that the FEA results
for Cases T1, T4 and T5 are close to each other with
very small dierences, and match well with the test data.
Therefore, a constant specic heat value at room tem-
perature can be used in numerical simulation to obtain
good temperature results.
Fig. 5 shows the distribution of temperature at the
four tested points for various thermal conductivities for
cases T1, T6 and T7. The data in Fig. 5 indicate that (a)

Fig. 5. Eect of thermal conductivity on the transient temper-

ature at four points. Using thermal conductivity at the room
temperature (Case T6), average value (Case T7) and function of
temperature (Case T1).

the FEA results for the RT conductivity (Case T6)

Fig. 3. Eect of density on the transient temperature at four
points. Using density at the room temperature (Case T2), av-
erage value (Case T3), and function of temperature (Case T1).
overestimated the temperature relative to those from the
standard Case T1, with the maximum error less than
10%, and (b) the numerical results from using the av-
eraged conductivity (Case T7) are nearly the same as
those obtained from the standard Case T1. Moreover,
all FEA results for Cases T1, T6 and T7 agree well with
the test data. Therefore, two conclusions can be made
here, (a) the averaged conductivity can be used to obtain
as good numerical prediction as using temperature-
dependent conductivity, and (b) using a constant con-
ductivity at room temperature can also give reasonable
approximation of transient temperature eld.
972 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
In addition, when all three thermal properties are
taken as the room temperature values, i.e. Case T8, the
FEA results of the transient temperature elds at the
four test points are almost identical to those for Case T6,
as shown in Fig. 5. Hence, they are not reproduced here.
Comparing to the standard Case T1, the results from
Case T8 only show a less than 10% dierence.
In conclusion, from our studies in thermal modeling
of welding all thermal properties can be simply taken as
the room temperature values to yield the numerical
temperature results with sucient accuracy. This vali-
date the assumption of constant thermal properties used
by Free and Go [7] and Canas et al. [2] in their welding
simulations.
4. Eect of mechanical properties on deformation simu-
lation
This section presents the numerical results of residual
stress and deformation elds for three sets of mechanical
properties, i.e. property values at the room temperature,
the average values over the temperature history and the
values as functions of temperature. All FEA results are
also compared with the experimental data obtained by
Masubuchi [14]. As such, the eect of various mechan-
ical properties on the deformation simulation can be
evaluated.
4.1. Deformation modeling
From the elasticplastic constitutive Eq. (3), it is seen
that Youngs modulus E, the yield stress rs and thermal
expansion coecient a are three primary mechanical
properties in the thermo-mechanical analysis. The other
two parameters, i.e. the Poisson ratio m and plastic
hardening modulus Et have been proved no eects on
deformation modeling, respectively, by Tekrival and
Mazumder [19] and Canas et al. [2]. Therefore, in our
current calculation, m 0:33 and Et 0 are assumed.
Parameters E, rs and a are taken as the room temper-
ature (RT) value, average value over temperature his-
tory and the value as functions of temperature in FEA
modeling. For comparison, 10 cases of thermal proper-
ties are considered in our thermal modeling as follows
(notice that Cases D4D10 use the temperature eld
from Case T1)
D1E ET , rs rs T and a aT are func- temperature (i.e. Case D3) is in good agreement with
tions of temperature, as shown in Fig. 2(b). Temper-
ature eld is obtained from Case T1, i.e. all thermal
properties are functions of temperature.
D2E ET , rs rs T and a aT . Tempera- 10%. All FEA results for the three cases match well with
ture eld is obtained from Case T7, i.e. the average
value of conductivity.
D3E ET , rs rs T and a aT . Tempera-
ture eld is obtained from Case T8, i.e. all thermal
properties are taken as the room temperature values.
D4Youngs modulus at RT, E E0 69:3 GPa,
rs rs T and a aT .
D5averaged Youngs modulus, E E 44:5 GPa,
rs rs T and a aT .
D6yield stress at RT, rs rs0 193 MPa,
E ET and a aT .
D7averaged yield stress, rs rs 77:6 MPa,
E ET and a aT .
D8thermal expansion at RT, a a0 22:73 lm=
m C, E ET and rs rs T .
D9averaged thermal expansion, a a 25:35
lm=m C, E ET and rs rs T .
D10RT values for E and a, E E0 , a a0 , and
rs rs T .
Since all thermal and mechanical properties are
functions of temperature in Case D1, the FEA result of
residual stress and deformation is referred to as a stan-
dard numerical solution in the deformation simulation.
All other FEA results of residual stress and deformation
for Cases D2D8 will be compared to that for the
standard Case D1 in order to evaluate the accuracy of
simulation results for each case.
4.2. Eect of thermal properties on the residual stress and
distortion
Fig. 6(a) shows the distributions of residual stress in
the longitudinal direction, rxx , along the middle section
of the beam for Cases D1, D2 and D3. Fig. 6(b) shows
the transient deection of the lower midpoint of the
beam for the three cases. The experimental data of the
residual stress and transient deection measured by
Masubuchi [14] are also plotted in the two gures. It
should be noted that all mechanical properties used in
these three cases are functions of temperature. The
objective of the comparison shown in Fig. 6 is to in-
vestigate the change of thermal properties on the de-
formation simulation.
Again, the FEA results of the residual stress and
transient deection predicted by using the averaged
conductivity (i.e. Case D2) are almost the same as those
from the standard Case D1. Except in the area close to
the weld line, the residual stress distribution in other
areas predicted by using thermal properties at room
those of Case D1, and the maximum error is <10%. The
transient deections predicted by Case D3 also agree
with those of Case D1, and the maximum error is about
the test data for both the residual stress and the transient
deection. It may be concluded that the various thermal
 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
Fig. 6. Eect of thermal properties on deformation simulation.
Using averaged conductivity (Case D2), the room temperature
properties (Case D3) and functions of temperature for all
thermal properties (Case D1). (a) Residual stress along the
middle section of the beam, (b) transient deection at the lower
mid-point of the beam.
properties studied have no signicant eects on defor-
mation simulation.
4.3. Eect of mechanical properties on the residual stress
and distortion
The distribution of the residual stress along the
middle section and the transient deection at the lower
midpoint of the beam for Cases D1, D4 and D5 are
shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. Both numerical
results are compared with the test data. The comparison
in Fig. 7 indicates that (a) using the room temperature
value of Youngs modulus (i.e. Case D4) yields numer-
ical results almost as good as the standard Case D1 for
both the residual stress and the transient deection, and
(b) the FEA results match well with the test data. The
dierence for the residual stress is only in the weld re-
gion, and the maximum error is about 13%. On the other
hand, using the averaged Youngs modulus (i.e. Case
D5) predicts the deection after welding, i.e. after 500 s,
973
Fig. 7. Eect of Youngs modulus on deformation simulation.
Using room temperature value of Youngs modulus (Case D4),
average value (Case D5) and function of temperature (Case
D1). (a) Residual stress along the middle section of the beam,
(b) transient deection at the lower mid-point of the beam.
with an error about 11% relative to the standard Case
D1, while the FEA residual stress from Case D5 sig-
nicantly deviates from that of the standard Case D1.
The maximum error of residual stress for Cases D5
compared to the standard Case D1 is more than 40%. In
conclusion, Fig. 7 shows that the predicted results using
the room temperature value of Youngs modulus in a
welding simulation are acceptable.
Fig. 8(a) and (b) shows the distribution of the re-
sidual stress along the mid-section of the beam and the
transient deection at the lower midpoint of the beam,
respectively, for Cases D1, D6 and D7. It is interesting
to see from Fig. 8(a) that using the room temperature
value of the yield stress, rs0 (i.e. Case D6), in the simu-
lation predicts ZERO value of the residual stress as well
as the permanent deection after welding. It is well
known that the residual stress in weldment is caused by
plastic strains in regions where high temperature occurs
during welding. However, the constant rs0 overestimates
the material yield ability, which actually reduces with
974 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
Fig. 8. Eect of yield stress on deformation simulation. Using
room temperature value of yield stress (Case D6), average value
(Case D7) and function of temperature (Case D1). (a) Residual
stress along the middle section of the beam, (b) transient de-
ection at the lower mid-point of the beam.
increasing temperature in the high temperature region,
so that only elastic strains, but no plastic strains, occur
in the weldment. This is clearly demonstrated by the
variation of the transient deection for Case D6 as
shown in Fig. 8(b). The deection has the same tendency
as the test data during the welding, but restores to zero
value after the welding is completed and the room
temperature is reached. When the yield stress is changed
to the average value, the numerical results for Case D7,
as shown in Fig. 8, have the same tendency as the test
data for both the residual stress and deection. But there
exhibits a large dierence between Cases D7 and D1.
Accordingly, the yield stress has to be considered as a
function of temperature to predict correct deformation
in welding simulation.
Fig. 9(a) and (b) compares the variations of the re-
sidual stress and deection for Cases D1, D8 and D9.
There is nearly no dierence between the three cases,
and all FEA results match well with the test data for
both the residual stress and transient deection. It can
be concluded that the thermal expansion coecient can
Fig. 9. Eect of thermal expansion coecient on deformation
simulation. Using room temperature value of thermal expan-
sion coecient (Case D8), average value (Case D9) and func-
tion of temperature (Case D1). (a) Residual stress along the
middle section of the beam, (b) transient deection at the lower
mid-point of the beam.
be simply taken as the room temperature value in
welding simulation.
4.4. An engineering approach using simplied properties
The analyses and comparison above revealed that all
thermal and mechanical properties, except for the yield
stress, can be simply taken as the room temperature
values in welding simulation to give the residual stress
and distortion with sucient accuracy. The yield stress
has to be considered as a function of temperature in the
thermo-mechanical simulation. Since the yield stress at
high temperature for engineering alloy is often not
readily available for welding simulation, an engineering
approximation to this particular material property at
high temperatures is investigated and proposed here. It
is assumed that the yield stress for the material under
consideration takes the room temperature value when
 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
0 6 T 6 100 C, 5% of the room temperature value when
T P T1 2=3 of the melting temperature of the material,
and a linear function of temperature in between, i.e.
100 C < T < T1 . Note that T1 is essentially the cut-o
temperature used widely in numerical simulation for
welding to account for the close-to-zero yield stress as
the melting temperature of the material is approached.
Five percent (other than zero) is chosen arbitrarily to
avoid any numerical diculties. We have performed
numerical tests and it was found that the selection of ve
percent as well as a precise cut-o temperature is not
sensitive to the nal results.
For the 5052-H32 aluminum alloy, the melting tem-
perature is 607 C and thus T1 400 C. The assumed
temperature-dependent yield stress for the 5052-H32
aluminum alloy can then be expressed mathematically
by the following piece-wise linear function
Fig. 10. Comparison of the engineering approach for defor-
mation simulation. Using temperature-dependent yield stress
and room temperature properties for others (Case D10); all
properties are functions of temperature (Case D1); and the
engineering approach using approximate rs as in Eq. (4). (a)
Residual stress along the middle section of the beam, (b)
transient deection at the lower mid-point of the beam.
975
8
< rs0 193 MPa; 0 6 T 6 100 C
rs 5%rs0 400T
95%rs0 ; 100 < T < 400 C
: 300
5%rs0  10 MPa; T P 400 C
4
The variation of the yield stress in (4) with temperature
is plotted in Fig. 2(b) in dashed line.
The simplied yield stress in (4) and the room tem-
perature values for all other properties constitute an
engineering approximation for material properties in
welding simulation. The residual stress and deection
from FEA using this simplication are depicted in Fig.
10. It is observed that the residual stresses are in very
good agreement with the test data as well as the standard
FEA results of Case D1, except perhaps for the weld
area. The maximum error of the peak value of the re-
sidual stress is about 13% in the weld area. The computed
transient and permanent deections also match well with
both the test data and the standard FEA results. The
maximum dierence in deection between Case D1 and
the engineering approach is <10%. These results indicate
that the proposed engineering approach using simplied
material properties is a simple, yet eective, way in
welding simulation for the aluminum alloy.
5. Concluding remarks
To investigate the eects of temperature-dependent
material properties on transient temperature, residual
stress and distortion in computational simulation of a
welding process detailed 3D nonlinear thermal and
thermo-mechanical analyses are performed using FEA
method. Three sets of material property for the 5052-
H32 aluminum alloy are investigated, i.e. values at the
room temperature, average values over temperature
history, and functions of temperature. Numerical results
are compared between the three sets, as well as com-
pared with the test data. The main results and conclu-
sions are summarized as follows:
(1) The thermal conductivity has some eect on the
distribution of transient temperature eld during weld-
ing. The material density and specic heat have negli-
gible eect on the temperature eld. Although using the
average values over the temperature history is better,
adopting room temperature values of all thermal prop-
erties in the welding simulation can predict reasonable
results for the transient temperature distribution.
(2) The yield stress is the key mechanical property in
welding simulation. Its value has signicant eect on the
residual stress and distortion. If the room temperature
value of the yield stress is taken, the FEA computation
predicts zero residual stress and no permanent distortion
because only elastic strain, and no plastic strain, occurs
under this circumstance. The temperature dependency of
the yield stress must be considered in a welding process
simulation to obtain correct results.
976 X.K. Zhu, Y.J. Chao / Computers and Structures 80 (2002) 967976
(3) Youngs modulus and the thermal expansion co-
ecient have small eects on the residual stress and
distortion, respectively, in welding deformation simula-
tion. It is found that the numerical results obtained by
using the room temperature value of Youngs modulus
are much better than those using its average value over
temperature history.
(4) An engineering approach using simplied prop-
erties, constituted by a piece-wise linear function with
temperature of the yield stress and the constant room
temperature values of all other properties, is proposed
and validated for computational welding simulations of
aluminums. Similar approach can be extended to weld-
ing simulation for steels. The proposed simplication
methodology for material properties is most useful for
welding simulation when detailed material properties at
high temperatures are unavailable.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the support of this work
by the National Science Foundation through Grant
CMS0116238, program director Dr. K.P. Chong.
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