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This paper presents the characteristics of welding residual stresses in circumferential butt-welded stainless steel pipe by utilizing three-dimensional (3-D) uncoupled thermo-mechanical finite element (FE) analysis method. Moreover, stress variations in welded joints of the pipe under superimposed mechanical axial tension loading are further investigated employing the welding residual stresses and plastic strains obtained from the thermo-mechanical FE analysis as an initial condition. Results show that spatial variations of the welding residual stresses are present along the circumference and a rapid change of the residual stresses exists at the welding start/stop position, hence 3-D FE analysis is essential to accurately simulate circumferential welding of a pipe component. When mechanical axial tension loading is applied to the circumferentially buttwelded stainless steel pipe, bending moment is generated at the welded joints caused by the circumferential shrinkage of the weld region during welding; thus affecting the axial and hoop stress evolutions in the course of the superimposed mechanical loading.

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During repair welding of steel bridge under service load, vibration occurs due to the dynamic loads like wind and vehicles, etc. However, the effect of vibration during welding on the fatigue strength of weldments is not yet clearly understood. In this paper, the effect of vibration during welding on the fatigue strength of structural steel weldments was investigated in order to improve reliability in the repair welded joints of steel bridge. The base material used in this investigation was SM 490A steel of weldable grade. Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) process was used to fabricate the single ‘V’ butt joints. Welding was performed on the steel under the mechanical vibration of given frequency. The applied frequency was resonant frequency. Also, weldments under no vibration during welding were prepared. Fatigue tests were conducted using a servo hydraulic controlled 50tonf capacity UTM with a frequency of 5Hz under constant amplitude loading. Effect of vibration during welding on the fatigue strength of weldments was analyzed in detail.

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