Dear All,
Can you guys please guide us on how to run Butt and Lap Joint ( welding analysis) i.e. how to build the model?.
Do you mean analyzing the strength of a ready-made welded joint or simulating the welding process ?
we want to simulate and run fea analysis for butt and lap joint. After that we will physically build the units and we will test them to co- relate the results.
So you want both - simulation of the welding process (weld being built during the simulation) and then strength analysis of the formed weld ? The latter is easy (here’s an example: CalculiX-Examples/Thermal/Thermal distortion at master · calculix/CalculiX-Examples · GitHub) but the former is tricky because CalculiX doesn’t have built-in features for that and workarounds are necessary to simulate the welding process. You can find some helpful resources on the CalculiX forum where this topic has been discussed a few times in the past. For example: Welding analysis with DFLUX - CalculiX (official versions are on www.calculix.de, the official GitHub repository is at https://github.com/Dhondtguido/CalculiX).
Well for butt and lap joins which constraints can we use please?. Or not recommended as they may poduce wrong results?.
There are several ways. Sometimes the mesh is made continuous and there are no constraints to avoid spurious stress concentrations. Often there are tie constraints and contact. With well matched meshes it shouldn’t be a problem. You will find a comparison of the different approaches here: Modeling Welds for Finite Element Analysis (FEA) | Apollo Engineering
Thanks a lot. We created simple parts, joined the parts( in freecad) using boolean operation, and built the model( attached).
Do you believe we can co-relate( with less error and certanity) the above results to butt welding results ?.
I can’t download it without having to register on that website. Could you use a different hosting service like e.g. WeTransfer ?
Please share ur email id
Ok, I can download it now. If you want to get more accurate results in the weld area:
then apart from further refining the mesh locally in this global model, you can also use the submodeling technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNVE1rk1yps and analyze only a small segment of the joint with a finer mesh. This is commonly used for weld assessments.
Great . In principle, you are ok with our approach right..
Further, any example on how to run an impact analysis please.
As long as you include the geometry of the weld (either merged with the welded parts or tied to them), it should work with a sufficiently refined mesh. The aforementioned article nicely shows which way may provide better results.
CalculiX (unlike e.g. OpenRadioss) is not really good for that, you may encounter several limitations. But you can try with implicit or explicit dynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X0Shj7UXE0