Effect of specimen dimension on welding residual stresses

The magnifude and the distribution of welding residual stress of butt thin plates were calculated by means of the large-scale finite element method software ANSYS,and the effect of plate length and plate width on welding residual stress was obtained,especially the effect of the middle-sized plate and narrow plate on welding residual stress.The results show that when the weld length is less than 100 mm the longitudinal residual stress of different width plate is the same,and all kinds of plates belong to wide plate.With the increment of the weld length the distribution of the residual stress gradually transfer to middle-sized plate and narrow plate.The calculated resuls was compared with the experimental results,and the results were identical.The acquired results may be used to predict the welding residual stresses.