FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF RESIDUAL STRESS ANALYSIS IN T-WELDED ZONE OF ALUMINUM ALLOY 6061-T6

Residual stresses induced during welding process are neglected in most of the engineering applications; however, the significance of residual stresses cannot be neglected in applications of significant concern such as defense vehicles, pressure vessels etc., as these leads to stress concentration, corrosion, cracking, distortion, fatigue cracking, premature failures in components and instances of over-safe design. This paper illustrates importance of residual stresses characterization in Aluminum alloy plate welding. This work focuses on the behavior of residual stress for Aluminum Alloy structure in 6061-T6 with a filler weld material ER5356 and further to improve the weld life of such joints. Experimentation for each weld parameter has been carried out and this gives a better understanding of the weld behavior for stress concentration. For this work, major focus is on feeding travel rate and the results are evaluated numerically by means of finite element method. The FE analysis allows highlighting and evaluating the stress factors and its gradients by means of heat affected zones (HAZ). The experimental validation of residual stress measurement through X-ray diffraction technique (XRD) carried out at Automotive Research Association of India. Comparison of the experimental and analytical results reflects a comprehensive solution for the optimized value of residual stresses, strains and distortion in welded structure.