Actual application of FEM to analysis of large scale mechanical problems in welding

The finite element method is a powerful tool for predicting welding distortion. However, the mechanical phenomena are strongly non-linear and transient and thus, thermo–elastic–plastic finite element analyses of the phenomena require very long computational time. To overcome this problem, an interactive substructure method was developed as an approach to reduce the computational time in three-dimensional analyses. In this paper, in order to confirm calculation efficiency for a large scale problem, a pipe model with 538 200 degrees of freedom was computed. Furthermore, the residual distortion in an engine component was computed and the applicability of the calculation for problems in welding practices was demonstrated.