Weld head motion control of girth and tubular joint welding simulations in LS-DYNA

Abstract: The basis for performing a thermo-mechanical staggered coupled heat source analysis of a welding simulation is implemented into LS-DYNA. In this report, three methods for initiating the heat source’s mechanical motion during girth and tubular joint welding are developed and evaluated. The first method is a reformulation of the equations used at Det Norske Veritas, the second is an incorporation of the equations into excel and the third is a standalone third party software. The most efficient of the developed methods turned out to be the software which creates k-files which are implemented into the main k-file using LS-PrePost. All methods have been visually and numerically evaluated using Excel, LS-DYNA and LS-PrePost.