Analysis of Welded Joint Under Residual Stresses

Welded joint is most commonly used for building structures and machine components. Welding process involves heating followed by uneven cooling causing residual stress field. In conjunction with stresses due to external loads, in-service behaviour is affected due to residual stress in welded components. It induces defects, also alters crack initiation life, fatigue behaviour, breaking strength, corrosion resistance and increases the susceptibility of structure to failure by fracture. The residual stress is function of cooling rate and the size of weld. The role of residual stress associated with welding is therefore very important while designing mechanical parts. Conventional methods like heat treatment and shot-peening techniques becomes difficult to be applied for reduction of residual stress in general purpose applications. The work presented in this paper describes the measurement of residual stress using stress relieving method, based on hole-drilling technique. Subsequently, residual stresses are relived and measured using strain rosette near the weld zone. These strains value is converted in to stress value. Residual stress is quantified with respect to yield strength, making it possible to be considered for safe designing of weld components.