An experimental study on residual stresses of high strength steel box columns

As high strength steel (HSS) box columns are often fabricated by welding of steel plates together, welding process during fabrication inevitably introduces residual stresses in the columns and affects their strengths. Hence, a good understanding of the influence of the welding process on the residual stresses of HSS built-up box column is important for the design of such columns. In this study, an experimental investigation to investigate the effects of welding process on the residual stress distributions of HSS built-up box columns was carried out. Two groups of identical specimens fabricated by flux-cored arc welding and submerged arc welding were studied. The influence of different welding methods was investigated by employing the ASTM hole-drilling method to measure the residual stress distributions. Furthermore, a study was also conducted to evaluate the effects of different heat treatment procedures on the magnitude and distributions of the final residual stresses produced.