Analysis for Cooling Process of Arc Welding

—Butt Joint with Single V-Groove—

Abstract

Many previous investigators have been engaged in estimating the cooling cycle of welded joint, which significantly affects the strength of welded joint. However, most of those researches have dealt with arc welding of‘bead on plate’ to examine essential thermal behaviors of welded joint. In actual arc welding practice, various types of groove configurations are adopted in accordance with plate thickness. V-shaped groove is widely used among them for plates with relatively large plate thickness. In this study, a welded joint with a single V-groove is treated, and a numerical approach to analyze its cooling cycle is proposed using three-dimensional finite difference method (FDM) in the quasi-transient temperature field. The accuracy of the numerical approach proposed here is demonstrated by comparing cooling cycles obtained by FDM with those measured from shield metal arc welding.