Finite Element Analysis of Full Penetration and Fillet Welds in Cantilever Beams

Beams in engineering structures are mainly jointed together by welding. In general, they are imposed to static and dynamic loads. Thus, analyses of welds are very important to study their behaviours. In this study finite element analyses of welds in the cantilever box beams are performed using the ANSYS program. Two different types of weld are considered; full penetration welds and fillet welds. Stress distributions in different paths are calculated for both types. It is shown that using of full penetration welds in a structure leads to safer welds than using of fillet welds. In addition, effects of different parameters such as fillet weld leg, weld material, thickness of cantilever box beam, and amount of its penetration in beam are studied.