Computational Techniques in Numerical Simulations of Arc and Laser Welding Processes

The article presents a comparison of modern computational techniques used in numerical analyses of welding processes. The principles of the “transient” technique calculations with a moving heat source, the “macro-bead” (MBD) technique, with an imposed thermal cycle on a selected weld bead section and the “local–global” approach with shrinkage calculation technique were described. They can be used, depending on the variant chosen, both for individual, simple weld joints and those made of many beads or constructions containing dozens of welds and welded elements. Differences in the obtained results and time needed to perform calculations with four different calculation examples of single and multipass arc and laser beam welding processes were presented. The results of calculations of displacements and stresses distributions in the welded joints using various computational techniques were compared, as well as the calculation times with the described techniques. The numerical analyses in the SYSWELD software package have shown the differences between the described computational techniques, as well as an understanding of the benefits and disadvantages of using each of them. This knowledge allows preparing an efficient and fast optimization of the welding processes, often aimed at minimizing deformations in the first place, as well as detection of potential defects of both simple and complex welded structures. In general, the possibilities and flexibility of modern numerical calculation software have been presented.