PREDICTION AND CONTROL OF ANGULAR DISTORTION IN THICK WELDMENTS

The welding distortion of a hull structure in the shipbuilding industry is inevitable at each assembly stage. The geometric inaccuracy caused by the distortion tends to preclude the introduction of automation and mechanization and needs the additional man-hours for the adjusting work at the following assembly stage. To overcome this problem, a distortion control method should be applied. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop an accurate prediction method which can explicitly account for the influence of various factors on the welding distortion. In order to minimize the weld-induced angular distortion in thick weldments, this paper proposes the optimum groove design for various plate thicknesses as the distortion control method. The validity of this method has been substantiated by a number of numerical simulations and experiments.