FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF TIG WELDING OF AISI 304L STAINLESS STEEL AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION

In this research work, thermo-elasto-plastic analysis using finite element modeling (FEM) was carried out to study the thermo mechanical behavior of AISI 304L stainless steel plate of 3 mm thick during the autogenous tungsten inert gas welding. Sysweld software has been employed for simulating the temperature distribution, residual stresses and distortion. Physical and mechanical properties of 304 L stainless steel required for simulation were obtained from the literature. Bead-on-plate experiment was carried out at 140 A and 120 mm/min for obtaining weld bead dimensions which are required for heat source fitting in the simulation. Heat source parameters in the simulation were frozen when the bead profile obtained in the simulation matched with the actual bead profile. Then thermal cycles were simulated with the frozen heat source parameters. The thermal cycles and the peak temperatures predicted by the model were compared with that of the experimentally measured values. There was good agreement between the predicted and measured values. The experimentally validated thermal model was further used for simulating residual stresses and distortion. The calculated residual stress profile was validated using experimentally measured residual stress profiles using an Ultrasonic technique. There was good agreement between the predicted and measured residual stress profiles. The simulated distortion values were compared with measured distortion values using height gauge. There was good agreement between the simulated and measured distortion values. The Finite Element model developed for simulating the TIG welding of 304 L stainless steel predicted the thermal cycles, residual stresses and distortion with minimum error.