Measurements of residual stresses in a welded orthotropic steel deck by the hole-drilling method considering stress biaxiality

Welding residual stress (WRS) significantly affects the fatigue cracking of orthotropic steel deck. In this paper, the influence of strain release coefficients (SRC) calibration methods on the WRS measurement results of the hole-drilling method was studied; then the WRSs of an orthotropic steel deck were measured by the hole-drilling method considering stress biaxiality. High-value WRSs are greatly overestimated, when the SRC are calibrated via the formula method and experiment. The uniaxial FEM calibration ignoring the stress biaxiality still leads to a peak WRS error of 11.48%. Considering the influence of stress biaxiality on SRC, the average peak WRS is 496.3 MPa, appearing at the weld centerline on the deck; as the distance from the weld centerline increases, the WRSs gradually decrease until to the compressive stress; the WRS distribution of the deck top surface is approximately M-shaped with two tensile WRS areas around the weld; the WRSs on the deck bottom surface have a similar distribution trend to those on the top surface; the WRSs of the U-rib are obviously smaller than those of the deck. The transverse WRS distribution is similar to that of longitudinal WRS, while its value is far less than longitudinal WRS.

Automated summary

This study investigated the influence of different strain release coefficient calibration methods on the measurement results of welding residual stress, finding that high-value WRSs are significantly overestimated when calibrated using the formula method and experiment. Consideration of stress biaxiality revealed specific distribution trends of WRSs on an orthotropic steel deck.