Welding simulation of fillet-welded joint using shell elements with section integration

For the purpose of reducing time cost of welding simulation, a FE approach combing shell elements for modeling the overall welded plates and solid elements for considering the contribution of detail materials at the local region of weld line was developed in this paper. The corresponding thermal and mechanical degrees of freedom were related between shell and solid elements by linear constraint equations. A typical fillet-welded joint of 9 and 12 mm was simulated by the method and the temperature history and distribution, welding distortion together with residual stress was compared with solid model and measured experiment data. The results show that very good agreement can be achieved and the computational time can save up to 40% compared with solid model for the joint.