Weld Joints Analysis using Ansys Workbench
Objective
To Simulate three different types of welding joints under 12000 N using three different weld materials
Weld Material used:
Case 1. Stainless Steel for all parts
Case 2. Aluminium Alloy for weld parts and Stainless steel for ribs and plates
Case 3. Bronze for weld parts, Stainless steel for plates and Copper for ribs
Importing the model
The CAD model is imported and viewed in spaceclaim and making sure there are no errors in the geometry.
Simulation Setup
Materal assignment
The plates, ribs and weld joints all are assigned with material Stainless steel
Contact Definition
The contacts between the plates and the ribs are defined as a frictional contact with a frictional coefficient of 0.2
The weld areas are defined by bonded contacts.
Mesh generation
The two plates are selected for body sizing and an element length of 5mm is assigned
The other parts are meshed with default ansys settings
The mesh metrics is as given below
Analysis settings
Fixed Support
The inner surface of the hole's in the big plate are selected and defined as fixed support. Thus the plate's degree of freedom becomes zero
Force definition
The four inner surfaces of the rectangualr bracket are selected and a force of 12000 N is applied in the negative Y-axis direction.
Results
The model is solved and following results are generated Directional deformation, Equivalent strain and Equivalent stress
The force-convergence plot is viewed and it can be concluded that the model results have converged without any convergence issues.
Case 1. Stainless Steel for all parts
Directional deformation
Equivalent strain
Equivalent stress on weld elements
Case 2. Aluminium Alloy for weld parts and Stainless steel for ribs and plates
Directional deformation
Equivalent strain
Equivalent stress on weld elements
Case 3. Bronze for weld parts, Stainless steel for plates and Copper for ribs
Directional deformation
Equivalent strain
Equivalent stress on weld elements
Comparing the results of 3 different material models
1) Directional deformation (Y-axis) is minimum for the model where all parts are stainless material
2) Equivalent strain seems to be lowest for the stainless steel (case - 1) and strains in case 2 (AL) and case 3 (Bronze) are almost similar
3) Equivalent stress in welds is minimum for the Aluminim welds.
Aluminim welds show that the stress induced in them are the least but it deforms more than stainless steel. Hence depending upon the application aluminium welds or stainless welds can be used.