Simulation of welding and stress relief heat treatment of an aero engine component

It is important to control key dimensions in aero engine components during manufacture. This is achieved by finding a stable process-parameter window for each manufacturing operation and to choose an order of manufacture which give an adequate result. Production planning has traditionally been carried out from experience and experiments. However, in order to reduce lead-time and cost, computer based numerical simulations using, the finite element method is increasingly being used. Simulations can give valuable information about component dimensions, shape, and residual stresses after each manufacturing process. This paper presents a method and the results of a simulation where welding and stress relief heat treatment operations are combined. Computational fluid dynamics was also used to estimate the heat transfer coefficient of the component's surface during the heat treatment. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.