Simulação numérica da soldagem com aplicação à caracterização do comportamento dinâmico de estruturas soldadas

Abstract

Nowadays, welded structures are widely employed in engineering design. Generally, these structures have internal stresses (residual stresses) generated by the thermal cycle to which these parts are submitted during welding process. In many cases, these stresses are not minimized by means of thermal treatment. Thus, one must take into account the residual stresses in the design of welded components. However, computation of residual stress field is not an easy task and, besides, it is important to evaluate the quality of welded components. Therefore, by using the advantage of the fact that the stress state influences the mechanical behavior of components and structures (stress stiffening effect), it was proposed to evaluate the viability of a methodology to control the quality of welded components, by means of dynamic responses. This way, it was verified experimentally the sensitivity of vibrating natural frequencies to welding residual stress in different structures. It was confirmed that thin structures are more sensitive to the stress stiffening effect. To evaluate this effect numerically, a procedure to simulate welding was validated by using experimental data from literature. This procedure was used to obtain the residual stress field. This stress field is included in a modal analysis to verify the modifications of natural frequencies. Numerical results were compared to experimental results obtained here, showing a good agreement. It was also proposed to use the electromechanic impedance technique to evaluate the stress stiffening effect. An analysis of the results shows the possibility of use the stress stiffening effect to implement a methodology for quality control of welded components.