摘要
The main configuration of ship construction consists of standard and fabricated stiffening members,such as T-sections,which are commonly used in shipbuilding.During the welding process,the nonuniform heating and rapid cooling lead to welding imperfections such as out-of-plane distortion and residual stresses.Owing to these imperfections,the fabricated structural members may not attain their design load,and removing these imperfections will require extra man-hours.The present work investigated controlling these imperfections at both the design and fabrication stages.A typical fabricated T-girder was selected to investigate the problem of these imperfections using double-sided welding.A numerical simulation based on finite element modeling(FEM) was used to investigate the effects of geometrical properties and welding sequence on the magnitude of the welding imperfections of the T-girder.The FEM results were validated with the experimental measurements of a double-sided fillet weld.Regarding the design stage,the optimum geometry of the fabricated T-girder was determined based on the minimum steel weight and out-of-plane distortion.Furthermore,regarding the fabrication stage,a parametric study with two variables(geometrical properties and welding sequence)was conducted to determine the optimum geometry and welding sequence based on the minimum welding out-of-plane distortion.Increasing the flange thickness and reducing the breadth while keeping the T-girder section modulus constant reduced the T-girder weight and out-of-plane distortion.Noncontinuous welding produced a significant reduction in the out-of-plane distortion,while an insignificant increase in the compressive residual stress occurred.
