For fracture mechanics the location and geometry of the crack or defect must be specified as input data. The crack geometry could be specified as an ordered set of points enclosing the crack surface. The loading on the structure associated with the crack formation and crack propagation must be specified. If it is the same […]

Properties can be provided for a material or alloy or for a specific phase in a material or alloy. If properties are provided for a specific phase, then the macroscopic or alloy material properties must be computed by a method such as the rule of mixtures, homogenization or a micro-macro model. Properties of a phase […]

If there is a weld pool solver that computes the weld pool free surface, velocity and temperature in the weld pool and weld pool reinforcement, the input data should include the thermal flux, mass flux, current density distribution from the arc and pressure distribution from the arc. The viscosity of the liquid and density of […]

The initial conditions include initial stress, i. e., the residual stress and initial effective plastic strain for each part in the structure if it is known. If the residual stress in parts before welding starts is not known, it would usually be set to zero. If the manufacturing process for the part is simulated, the […]

The composition of the base metal must be specified. We prefer the format ((Fe,*), (C, 0.12), (Mn, 1.3),…). Here (Fe,*) means the balance of the fraction is Fe. We have to specify whether composition is in weight % or atomic %. Also the initial microstructure of the base metal must be specified. We prefer a […]

For the thermal analysis, the initial temperature of each part must be specified. The interface between the moving weld pool and its complement is a Dirichlet BC on the complement. The value of Dirichlet BC is the specific enthalpy of solid at the solidus temperature. There is also a weld velocity that is ‘parallel’ or […]

Associated with each weld pass in each weld joint is a weld pool. The weld pool may have any shape and size but its geometry must be specified as input data. If someone has a particularly complex weld pool, they could provide an STL file written by a CAD program. For many arc welds, an […]

9.1 Introduction and Synopsis This section describes the author’s preferred input data for a Computational Welding Mechanics analysis of a welded structure. Often some desired input data will not be available. In that case one must use the best available approximation that one can find. In addition, one can do analyses with different values of […]

Hot cracking is important in certain classes of alloys. This requires models of solidification, including segregation and texture modeling. The stress analysis near the melting point could be the most severe test constitutive models encounter. The yield strength approaches zero, texture and grain boundary effects are becoming significant. Experimentally, it is a hostile environment requiring […]

Since the 1950s, more than one hundred separate and distinct weldability tests aiming at assessing the solidification and liquation cracking susceptibility have been devised and completely new or modified tests are under continued development. However, the design and fabrication of solidification crack-free structures has not been completely successful despite tremendous effort. A critical problem remains […]