Welding distortion prediction based on local displacement in the weld plastic zone

For a welding procedure with grooves or filler materials, to avoid underestimating the welding distortion in predictions based on the residual plastic strain, a prediction approach is proposed to estimate the welding distortion based on the local displacement in the weld plastic zone, and the proposed method is verified using the thermal elastic-plastic finite element method. Additionally, the welding distortions of an orthotropic deck are estimated using the proposed method and compared with the experimental measurements. The results show that the proposed method can be used to predict the welding distortion with a high accuracy, and in addition to the welding procedures with grooves or filler materials, the proposed method is also applicable to procedures without them.