Investigating the influence of external restraint on welding distortion in thin-plate bead-on joint by means of numerical simulation and experiment

The main objective of this study is to clarify the influence of external restraint on welding deformation in thin-plate bead-on joint by means of both experiment and numerical simulation. In the current study, an advanced computational approach based on ABAQUS code with considerable moving heat source, material nonlinearity, and geometric nonlinearity was developed to simulate welding-induced distortion in thin-plate joints. Meanwhile, experiments were carried out to measure the out-of-plane deformations in the corresponding mock-ups. Based on the experimental and numerical results, the mechanisms of the out-of-plane deformation in the thin-plate joints were discussed. In addition, the influence of external restraint on welding distortion in thin-plate beadon joints was clarified by means of both numerical simulation and experiment. Both numerical models and experiments show that external restraint can mitigate the magnitude of the final deformation to some extent; however, it is difficult to satisfactorily eliminate welding distortion in the thin-plate joints only by external restraint. The results obtained from this work will be meaningful in understanding the features of welding distortion in thin-plate weldments, and will also be helpful in controlling welding distortion.