Evaluation of welding residual stress based on temper bead welding technique

To reduce welding residual stress (WRS) of a class 3 pressure vessel during the reconstruction, temper bead welding technique (TBWT) was applied to the container. To compare WRS causing by common welding and TBWT, WRS of the two different kinds of welded specimens of 16Mn steel were measured and evaluated by X-ray method. To study the effect of butt weld reinforcement height on WRS, welds with and without weld reinforcement were measured. The results show that longitudinal stress was reduced obviously and the lateral stress is the maximum principal stress for TBWT; WRS of TBWT T-shape specimens were obviously decreased which proves TBWT is better than common welding procedure; WRS was decreased by more than 25% after removing the weld reinforcement and further proves that it is one of effective ways to reduce WRS in engineering application.