Stress and distortion mitigation technique for welding titanium alloy thin sheet

A stress and distortion mitigation technique for Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V thin sheet is presented. The proposed welding technique incorporates a trailing heat sink (an intense cooling source) with respect to the welding torch, and it is also called the Dynamically Controlled Low Stress No-Distortion (DC-LSND) technique. The development of this mitigation technique is based on both detailed welding process simulation using the advanced finite element technique and systematic laboratory experiments. The finite element method is used to investigate the detailed thermomechanical behaviour of the weld during conventional GTAW and DC-LSND GTAW. With detailed computational modelling, it is found that by the introduction of a heat sink at some distance behind the welding arc, a saddle shaped temperature field is formed as a result of the cooling effects of the heat sink; the lowest temperature exists in the zone where the heat sink is applied. High tensile action on the surrounding zone is generated by abrupt cooling and contraction of the metals beneath the heat sink, which increases the tensile plastic strain developed during the cooling process and decreases the compressive plastic strain developed in the heating process, and therefore mitigates the residual stresses and plastic strains within and near the weld. The experimental results confirmed the effectiveness of the DC-LSND technique and the validity of the computational model. With a proper implementation of the DC-LSND technique, welding stress and distortion can be reduced or eliminated in welding titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V thin sheet, while no appreciable detrimental effects are caused on the mechanical properties of welded joints by applying the heat sink in the GTAW process.